problems with W3C on specific site

Hello @jmaartenw

I’m sorry about the issue you are experiencing and I am happy to assist you with this.
Can you please go to Performance>Minify and disable the settings one by one, save all settings and purge the cache after each setting is disabled and see which specific Minify option might be causing this.
If for example CSS minify is the problem, you can exclude specific css file from being minified in the advanced section of Minify page by adding the path to file to “Never minify following css files”.
The procedure is the same for the JS files.
Alternatively you can use Manual Minify and add the files manually and in proper order.
As for the lazy loading, you can go to Performance>User Experience and add the class of the images you are having issues with in Exclude words section.
I hope this helps
Thanks!

Hello there, I am also facing same problems with w3tc on specific site, on my multisite network. I am unable to do setting for subsite, I wanted to do setting for cache group for mobile and tabs. But these sections are disable for me. Is there need of pro version of this plugin. Please help.

Hello @prajktareke

I’ve replied to your email.
Please check your inbox.
Thanks!

hi,
I know you can create exceptions and have done this successfully before but just cannot seem to figure out how to create successful CSS exceptions on this site.

its mainly all CSS related issues
basically these settings needed to be disabled:
1- Minify>CSS>CSS minify settings – when enabled changes the menu to mobile hamburger menu and forces all the secondary menu bar content to align centred as it does on >1024 screen displays. it also causes the header section to appear in the middle of the page when scrolling down.
2- Minify>HTML & XML minify settings – when enabled the main menu loses all its padding and all the menu items appear all bunched up

as you can see with these settings disables the gtmetrix report is very poor.
it also complains about defer parsing of JavaScript which is actually still enabled.
https://gtmetrix.com/reports/freshstarthope.org/gsjM9LOw/

any help identifying how to exclude certain CSS scripts would be greatly appreciated ??

many thanks

Hello @jmaartenw

Thank you for the info.
It’s the trial and error procedure. You can find the CSS loading on your page in the console and try excluding one by one and see which one may be causing this.
For the HTML issue, the problem is most likely with the compatibility with the theme code so you may want to try HTML tidy instead of the default under Performance>General settings>Minify>HTML minifier:
Your GTmetrix report is showing a LOT of external resources (facebook) and unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about it since those resources are coming from an external server.
Thanks!

i’m not worried about external resources.

ive already tried the html tidy option and pretty much every other combination

can you give an example of how the css expceptions should be written in the exceptions list,

I’ve tried every combination

any update please? I need to disable the broken minify settings

Hello @jmaartenw

Sorry I missed your reply.
you can exclude the specific css file by adding the path to Performance>Minify>Advanced>Never Minify following CSS files filed.
For example:
/wp-content/themes/some-theme/assets/css/some-css-file.css

Thanks!

I understand but HOW do I know which CSS file???

Hello @jmaartenw

Thank you for your question.
I cannot say specifically because I am not familiar with your theme or the plugins you are using.
You can check all your css files that are loading, by inspecting the source of your website, go to the Network tab, select css and reload your website.
You can make the list of those CSS files, most likely those files are the theme files, and then add one by one in the Performance>Minify>Advanced>Never Minify following CSS files filed and make sure to save all settings, purge the cache and reload your website after each css file is added.

Alternatively again, you can use Manual minify and add the files one by one and in order
Thanks!

hi, So I’ve made some progress but still not fully resolved.
i followed your suggestion and found all the orgional CSS files ( had to disable the minify settings first so the website looked correct I then added the css files one at a time to the exceptions list to no avail
I then found that contrary to your document about W3C cache settings in Avada theme, i had to disable ALL of the Avada Performance settings. this resolved some of the issues.

i have one issue remaining where the Menu is still all “bunched up” i figured out by using the inspection tools in Chrome how to find the related CSS file that controls the menus which was /wp-content/themes/Avada/assets/css/style.min.css?ver=7.3.1
but this STILL did not fix the menu padding issue
i also tried wp-content/themes/Avada/assets/css/style.min.css?ver=7.3.1

then with CSS minify enabled the css file changes that controls that menu
so I added that one too but no change wp-content/cache/minify/f36d6.css

so now i’m stuck with no way to resolve this.
to get the menu to work correctly i have to disable all 3 settings for CSS minification as mentioned earlier.

can you tell me which CSS file should be excluded to fix the menu padding?
should it be added with or without a leading slash?

many thanks for the help so far

Hello @jmaartenw

Thank you for the information.
As I Can see in the document to configure W3TC with Avada it clearly states to Disable CSS And JavaScript Compilers to avoid issues.
I am not sure which css file needs to be excluded, however, I can advise that when entering the path make sure to have a leading forward slash and also try removing the query string. So for example it should look like this:
/wp-content/themes/Avada/assets/css/style.min.css
Thanks!

hi MArko,

thanks for the reply
yes the document says to disable lazyloading JS compiler and CSS which i did, but only when I disabled ALL the settings did some of the issues get resolved
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sn74pit3wbeqshk/disabled%20Performance%20settings.JPG?dl=0

I’ve tried with and without leading forward slash.
“the text underneath the box never Minify the following CSS files” says
“

and query strings.”

this message seems to contradict what you’ve told me. but either i’ve tried both.

so far none of the CSS files i’ve excluded ( a long list ) seems to work.
can you tell me if I should be enabling CSS minify and then find the relevant CSS file to exclude or Disable the minify CSS settings and then find the correct CSS file to exclude. reason for asking is that with CSS minify enabled there are hundreds of randomly named CSS files listed from the W3C cached Directory?

thanks
J M W

Hello @jmaartenw

Thank you for the information.
The best way is to disable CSS minify and to make a list of the CSS files that are loading when CSS minify is not enabled. Then re-activate the CSS minify and add the files one by one, making sure to save all settings and purge the cache after each file is added.
Thanks!

hi Marko, yes more or less did that apart from one or two random CSS files but last night after another night of endless testing I’ve basically worked out now that the only issue remaining (the main menu items all getting bunched up) is caused when I enable the HTML & XML> HTML minify setting see 3 screenshots
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zlrft1r853m6e4e/AAD7uZr2VWBVuV1sYSj2ItTma?dl=0

Now I’ve sort of learned how to exclude CSS files but I’ve tried a number of wasy to exclude the “Main-Menu” “Fusion-Menu” but don’t now what the format should look like or what HTML element to exclude.

hopefully a little bit more direction from you and I’ll be able to resolve this last issue.

thanks in advance.