Mobile Theme on Desktop

I’ve had the same issue that TheScienceRoom has. Can you guys give us an update?

Also, I’d be more than happy to purchase WPTouch Pro if that problem is resolved with the pro version. I’ve noticed a few more issues with WPTouch over the past six months and, as a long-time fan, would be more than happy to support you with a purchase of the Pro version if it doesn’t have these conflicts.

Thanks!

— Jamie

We are also experiencing this issue. Previously had been running WPtouch for years without issue.

We are also running W3 Total Cache but have added the WPtouch user agents to the rejected list in accordance to past reports of the same issue, however this has not solved the problem.

It seems to be happening intermittently and not specific to any browser (although all the reports we’ve heard are from Windows users). The site is: https://www.portent.com/blog.

We’re still looking into it but could definitely use a heads up if this is actually a bug that needs fixing.

*Edit: We are using WPtouch Pro so this is not specific to the free version.

It sounds as if there are caching plugins overwriting the desktop theme by serving cached mobile pages to desktop browsers (and vice-versa). While not an issue with WPtouch or WPtouch Pro, you may help the situation by configuring your caching plugin not to cache mobile pages nor to serve cached pages when mobile devices are detected. To do so, enter the user agents found under Advanced Options > Custom User-Agents to the “rejected user agents” areas in your caching plugin’s settings. Remember to clear your plugin, browser, and device caches before retesting.

For those of you with sticky caching plugins, try manually deleting the stored files via FTP.

Thanks, Brave New Code. I have even more respect for you now that you’ve responded so clearly. Thanks!

— Jamie Turner

Thanks for the reply, BraveNewCode.

After continuing to investigate, we discovered the interference was coming from Varnish, additional caching we are using on our server outside of WordPress. We’ll work on a solution for the conflict.

Thanks again for the detailed reply and additional information!

Where do I find the “Custom User-Agents” and the “rejected user agents” area in W3TC?

@sadhaka – It’s under Page Cache > Advanced > Rejected User Agents in W3TC and under Active Theme > Mobile User Agents > Custom User Agents in WPtouch.

@funkymonk145 – Ah, so, in w3TC, I copy the list of user agents listed in User Agent Groups > Manage User Agent Groups > User agents, and paste that into Page Cache > Advanced > Rejected User Agents ?

Thank you!

Not exactly. Basically, you want to prevent W3TC from handling any of the user agents that are being handled by WPtouch.

So this means you take the list of user agents WPtouch is using, which is found under Active Theme > Mobile User Agents > Custom User Agents in WPtouch settings, and copy this list of user agents into W3TC’s Rejected User Agents under Page Cache > Advanced > Rejected User Agents.

That make sense?

Yes – I see now. Thanks very much for making that so clear!

I just realized why these instructions weren’t making sense… I had updated WPTouch in the past, and had somehow gotten a version which was incorrectly numbered 1.9.41 instead of what should obviously have been 1.9.4.1 since the current version is 1.9.6.1. When the version_compare function evaluated the version I had installed, it looked like it was much newer than the actual newest version, so I was never prompted to upgrade to 1.9.6.1. (The version I had did not list the user agents currently handled by WPTouch, so I couldn’t follow these instructions.) I deleted WPTouch (which actually kept my settings) and reinstalled the newest version, and I have the list of user agents now.
I don’t know how the WPTouch developers want to handle the “version sinkhole” that happened, but I suppose as soon as they go to a 2.x branch, the sinkhole will be avoided.

Note to everyone who is having the problem described here, but can’t find the place from which to copy the user-agents, see if there is an update available and if you are using version “1.9.41”, you need to manually upgrade.

Oops. The current user agents ARE listed in version “1.9.41”; they just didn’t match the screenshots I’d seen. Still, one must manually upgrade from “1.9.41” to get future WPTouch features and update notices…

Thank you. We have logged the update notice bug for fixin’.

I have this problem with no caching plugin and without any caching at the server level. This may be a problem that’s made worse by a cache but appears to exist in the plugin natively.