Pagination links for custom query in admin dashboard show the same page number

paginate_links() assumes that it is called on a page that has gone through the standard frontend query parsing. It pulls values from that query that dictate how it works. Backend pages do not necessarily go through the same process and the function may be pulling values that either do not exist or contain the wrong values.

You can still use the function, but you need to feed it the correct values in its arguments instead of relying on the query to feed it. You mainly need to be concerned with the ‘total’ and ‘current’ values.

I was initially confused by your use of the term ‘dashboard’. For most people in these forums, we think of the ‘dashboard’ as only the one page you get after login that has the various meta boxes (At a Glance, Activity, etc.) and actually is labeled ‘Dashboard’ at the top. Since you have multiple pages I can’t see how this occurs in one of the dashboard metaboxes. I’m thus assuming your pages occur in the more general ‘Admin Area’ or ‘Backend’.

Not a big deal, you can call it whatever you like amongst friends, but by using consistent terminology when communicating with strangers you’ll minimize confusion.

Thanks for the reply and sorry for the wrong use in terminology. I indeed meant a page that is in the admin backend. The page is one that is created by my custom plugin.

I followed the example that was given here by Hemi: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5322266/add-pagination-in-wordpress-admin-in-my-own-customized-plugin

You can still use the function, but you need to feed it the correct values in its arguments instead of relying on the query to feed it. You mainly need to be concerned with the ‘total’ and ‘current’ values.

So should it look something like this instead?

$page_links = paginate_links( array(
    'base' => '%_%',
    'format' => '&pagenum=%#%',
    'prev_text' => __( '«', 'text-domain' ),
    'next_text' => __( '»', 'text-domain' ),
    'total' => $num_of_pages,
    'current' => $pagenum
) );

if ( $page_links ) {
    echo '<div class="tablenav"><div class="tablenav-pages" style="margin: 1em 0">' . $page_links . '</div></div>';
}

Thanks in advance.

Yes, that should do it. Of course success depends on ensuring $pagenum has the correct value.

Thanks for the reply. I tried putting it that way but unfortunately it didn’t work as well.

I eventually sorted it out by building a custom function to generate pagination. ??