Jetpack Related Posts only shows related posts when I append ?related_posts=1

Could you post your site URL here, so I can have a look?

If you want it to remain private, you can also contact us via this contact form:
https://jetpack.me/contact-support/

Hi Jeremy: thank you, I’d be happy to.

https://lucire.com/insider

I haven’t begun disabling other plug-ins yet (I was about to give that a go), but I have tried the Twenty Twelve and other default skins, and cannot see the related posts yet.

Jeremy, I also discovered if I add ?ak_action=reject_mobile to the end of the URL, this also works. That led me to wonder if the Jetpack mobile theme was incompatible, but deactivating it made no difference.

It seems that there are quite a few Javascript errors on your site, and these break some of the elements loaded via Javascript, like Jetpack’s Related Posts:
https://i.wpne.ws/bbUo

Could you try to deactivate each plugin, one at a time, until the Javascript errors disappear? I would recommend that you start with W3 Total Cache and its minify features, as they can sometimes mess things up with Javascript on a site.

Let me know how it goes.

Hi Jeremy: will do, thank you. I also noticed I could type anything after the ? and it seems to work.

I will start with W3 Total Cache and report back here.

Hi Jeremy, I followed your advice and began disabling each plug-in. None made a difference, and I couldn’t get a window exactly the same as yours for the console (I use Cyberfox, a 64-bit version of Firefox). However, I began tackling the Javascript errors you had in your very helpful screen shot (thank you, it was a massive help) and some were down to the skin, thanks to old code provided to us by various parties. I’ve replaced a lot of them; there’s only one I await a replacement for, but the rest seems to be gone based on the console in Cyberfox.

I wonder if these remaining Javascript errors could be the culprit.

I’m not the most computer-literate guy in the world but hopefully this is the right direction.

Could you check your W3 Total Cache settings, and make sure the “Cache URIs with query string variables” checkbox is disabled?

Once you’ve done so, flush your site’s cache, and let me know if helps!

Thank you so much for keeping on this, Jeremy, it was indeed checked. I’ve now unchecked it and flushed a few times, but still no joy. ?? I have double-checked that anything that says ‘minify’ in the W3 Total Cache settings is switched off.

I’m afraid I still get an old, cached version of the page, when querying for Related Posts for one of your posts:
https://lucire.com/insider/20150610/deadly-ponies-debuts-mens-range-with-classic-refined-bags/?relatedposts=1

Could you keep playing with your W3 Total Cache settings until the Related Posts query appears on that page?

Here is an example of what the query should look like:
https://jetpack.me/2015/06/08/evolution-of-the-jetpack-logo-behind-the-scenes-with-dave-whitley/?relatedposts=1

I’ve now disabled W3 Total Cache again, then flushed the cache, but I still can’t get the proper version of that query. ?? I’ve gone to some random pages on the site (there are several thousand posts) but the same thing still happens.

I have my personal blog that has never had W3 Total Cache, and it exhibits the same behaviour for some strange reason. I’m happy to provide the URL here if you feel it could be useful. The blog has some different plug-ins but I have gone through the same exercise of disabling and enabling.

Jeremy, I think I have stumbled across the answer. We are hosting on Nginx, and I wonder if this is the culprit:

https://jlyman.net/p/related-posts/

This is a bit beyond me but I will get our tech guy behind the server set-up to follow this. I have a feeling this will solve the issue, as we have five WordPress installations and they all seem to have the same problem.

It’s 12.40 a.m. in Australia where he is, but I’ll leave a note for him, then come back to you if this fixes things.

That could be what’s wrong indeed! Let me know how it goes!

Good news, Jeremy! It was indeed the config for Nginx. Our expert fixed it with this (pasting in case it helps others):

try_files $uri $uri/ /insider/index.php$is_args$args;

He wrote, ‘it tests to see if there are arguments and if there are it adds them transparently into the URL to be processed.’