Problems with the Block Gallery

  • I’m having two problems with Gutenberg gallery blocks.

    1. There’s no way to add images to prebuilt galleries. There’s supposed to be a pencil icon when you select a gallery. I’ve never seen this icon. Was the edit function moved?

    2. When I link the gallery to ‘attachment’, it’s hit or miss. Sometimes the images link to the attachment page, most times, it doesn’t link at all. I have to edit multiple times to get it to work.

    one more head-scratcher, if anyone knows the answer.
    when the attachment links work, the url USED to be in this format:
    mysite.com/my-post/my-post-attachment

    now the images link with the GUID like this
    mysite.com/?attachment_id=xxxxx

    did WordPress change this in an update?
    is it possible it broke links in google? my site was slapped pretty hard back in April 2021. I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    The pencil icon is only for editing individual pictures, when the entire gallery is selected, follow the media library link. There’s an edit gallery link on the left in the library.

    If the attachment links are like ?attachment_id=1234, this indicates “pretty” permalinks have been disabled. (the /my-post/my-post-attachment kind) Are other site URLs like this? Anyway, visit the permalinks settings screen and review your permalink structure. Even if there appears to be no need to change anything, changes are made in the background that may help the situation. (rewrite rules are regenerated)

    If by chance the permalink structure is stuck on “plain” and others cannot be selected, it’s likely because WP cannot make the changes it needs to make to the .htaccess file. This inability is usually due to file permissions or other server configurations.

    Thread Starter digitalrenewal

    (@digitalrenewal)

    excellent. I see how to add to the gallery now. Thanks for showing me where.

    I have permalinks set to postname. I tried resetting the permalink structure. I also deleted .htaccess and let it rewrite itself. Still ugly attachment links. Photos used to link with the pretty link a long time ago. I don’t know how it broke.

    Also, when I publish a gallery linked to attachment, it still doesn’t link to anything. I can go back in, change it to media. update. change it back to attachment. update. then it finally links. maybe something bigger is broken with attachments?

    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    If normal post pretty permalinks are working, there’s nothing wrong with .htaccess. Attachment links should follow the same scheme. It’s possible your theme or a plugin is altering behavior. As a test, switch to Twenty Twenty-one theme and deactivate all plugins. Revisit the permalinks settings screen. Then check one of the attachment links. They should now be pretty like normal posts.

    Restore your theme and plugins, one at a time. Revisit permalink settings after each, then check links again. When they return to plain type, the last activated is the culprit.

    Thread Starter digitalrenewal

    (@digitalrenewal)

    hmm, that didn’t work. 2021 theme, all plugins off, switched permalinks to default and back to postname. Post pretty permalinks are working. Attachment pretty permalinks are not.

    I noticed also. The image link displays attachment_id=1234. But when I click on it and lands on the attachment page, the URL changes to the pretty link (https://mysite/post/attachmentpage) I’m afraid if I build it one way and it changes to the other, my site will get slapped again when google cant find the links.

    Any other ideas?

    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    Can’t find the links? Don’t both correctly return the same content? And both should have the same canonical meta tag URL, so there wouldn’t be any sort of duplicate content SEO penalty.

    If WP is rewriting plain permalinks to pretty, I believe the plain links are embedded within post content, i.e. if you view content using code view, the image links are “plain” style. If this is the case, I’m unsure of the best solution. Before I spend time figuring out the best way forward, I’ll await confirmation that this is indeed the case.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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