Updated to version 0.9.0.2 and now ACF Fields are missing from dashboard

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback!

Do you mean that you don’t see the “ACF” admin menu? Or when you click on it you get an error? Can you please share any error or message you get?

Also, what are your WordPress / ACF versions?

In all case this is not normal. I would recommend to enable the WP_DEBUG & WP_DEBUG_LOG constants in your wp-config.php file, see if you get any PHP error in the /wp-content/debug.log file. See our guide.

Thanks!

Regards.

Hello!

When I go into ACF Field groups it says I have 0 field groups even though I have like 30. When I revert the plugin back to the previous version the fields show up again. I do not have any php errors. This only happend after updating the Advanced Custom Fields: Extended plugin from v0.8.9.5 to v0.9.0.2.

My WordPress version is: 6.5.2

ACF Pro version: 6.2.9?

For more context my ACF fields are saved as php files, and the acf fields still show up on pages, but I cannot edit the ACF Fields in the dashboard.

I noticed if I sync the php acf files before I update the plugin to 0.9.0.2, then the synced fields show up after upgrade. But it’s not ideal to have to manually sync these on all the sites I manage.

Hello,

Thanks for the details and the screenshot.

I suspect some custom code either in your theme or a in a third-party plugin, which interfere with ACF/ACFE.

In order to isolate the issue, I would recommend clone your website on a development / staging environment using Duplicator, or with your hosting backup solution. Then try to disable all your plugins one-by-one (at the exception of ACF Pro & ACF Extended) until you find which one cause the issue.

If the problem persists, try switch to the native WP Twenty Twenty Two theme, to make sure you don’t have any custom code in your theme which would break the feature.

Let me know if you found something.

Regards.

Regarding the context about the PHP AutoSync files.

All your Field Groups use the PHP AutoSync, right? Just to make things more clear:

In 0.8.9.5:

• You see Field Groups in your ACF UI
• You see your ACF Fields on your “Edit Post” pages

In 0.9.0.2

• You don’t see Field Groups in your ACF UI
• You still see your ACF Fields on your “Edit Post” pages

When you say “I noticed if I sync the php acf files before I update the plugin to 0.9.0.2”, do you mean that you just save the Field Group again in the UI in 0.8.9.5? So it updates the PHP files?

The PHP AutoSync feature should have no impact on the number of Field Groups displayed in the ACF UI.

Thanks.

Regards.

I tried changing themes and deactivated all plugins except ACF Pro & ACF Extended. The fields do not show up but when I downgrade ACF Extended the fields show up again. The first screenshot shows what I see when I down grade ACF Extended to 0.8.9.5. I have synced the one field called “Post type: Notification”

This screen shot shows what happens when I update the ACF Extended plugin to 0.9.0.2, only the field I synced remains:

Okay, I think I understand better now. Thanks for the screenshot.

So in 0.8.9.5, in fact you have 48 Field Groups, in the “Local” tab. This “Local” tab is a feature added by ACF Extended, it will simply list Field Groups that are manually registered in PHP by you or a plugin, using acf_add_local_field_group() either in your theme or in a custom plugin.

ACF or ACF Extended cannot control these Field Groups because they are registered by you via code. This is why they don’t appear in the “All” normal tab.

It might be an issue with how you register you field groups in PHP. Can you please show the code you use to register them? Are they registered in your theme? A plugin?

Thanks!

Regards.

When I search acf_add_local_field_group() I only see this function being called in the ACF Pro Plugin Files, ACF Extended plugin files and in the generated field group php files. I am not seeing in the theme where acf fields are being registered? Still confused how updating that one plugin hides the local files?

When you say “I see this function… in the generated field group php files”, where are these generated field groups files? In your theme? in /themes/my-theme/acfe-php/group_xxxxxxxx.php?

Can you please share the full code of one of these generated field group php file?

Thanks.

Yes, thanks for your patience. I didn’t build the theme so I don’t know how the generated php files were set up but I can’t find anything in functions.php or any other files where acf fields are being registered outside of the official ACF plugin files. Here is an example of an acf php file located in /themes/my-theme/acfe-php/group_xxxxxxxx.php

<?php

if( function_exists('acf_add_local_field_group') ):

acf_add_local_field_group(array(

'key' => 'group_6635786b8fba4',

'title' => 'test field',

'fields' => array(

array(

'key' => 'field_6635786bea480',

'label' => 'test text field',

'name' => 'test_text_field',

'aria-label' => '',

'type' => 'text',

'instructions' => '',

'required' => 0,

'conditional_logic' => 0,

'wrapper' => array(

'width' => '',

'class' => '',

'id' => '',

),

'default_value' => '',

'maxlength' => '',

'placeholder' => '',

'prepend' => '',

'append' => '',

),

),

'location' => array(

array(

array(

'param' => 'post_type',

'operator' => '==',

'value' => 'all',

),

),

),

'menu_order' => 0,

'position' => 'normal',

'style' => 'default',

'label_placement' => 'left',

'instruction_placement' => 'label',

'hide_on_screen' => '',

'active' => true,

'description' => '',

'show_in_rest' => 0,

'acfe_display_title' => '',

'acfe_autosync' => array(

0 => 'php',

),

'acfe_form' => 0,

'acfe_meta' => '',

'acfe_note' => '',

'modified' => 1714780278,

));

endif;

Okay, thank you.

This all start to make sense if you didn’t build the theme yourself.

So it’s normal that if you switch your theme to another one, you don’t see these “local” field groups. Because your field groups PHP files are registered in your custom theme.

I need to verify something. Can you please perform the following actions:

• Disable all your plugins, at the exception of ACF Pro & ACF Extended
• Install the native WP Twenty Twenty Two theme. You should see the theme folder here: /themes/twenty-twenty-two/
• Copy the whole /acfe-php/ folder from your theme: /themes/your-theme/acfe-php/
• Paste it in /themes/twenty-twenty-two/acfe-php/
• Switch to the Twenty Twenty Two theme in the “Appearance > Themes” admin menu
• You should now see your Field Groups in the “Local” tab

Let me know if that worked.

Hello,

I’m coming back to you about this issue. Any news? Did it work?

Regards.

@hwk-fr Sorry for the delay, I have deactivated all plugins and switched to Twenty-Twenty Four, I copied the acfe-php/ into Twenty-Twenty Four theme, still no local files and the only ACF Fieldgroups that appear is the one I synced before updating the plugin and the new field I created. I also tried these same steps with Twenty-Twenty Two theme with same results, ACF local fields are not visible.

I wonder if since these fields are being registered with the ACF Pro plugin if its some settings issue in that plugin?

• This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by wmamber.

Hello,

Thanks!

It’s not normal, it should be working out-of-the box with a native theme like Twenty Twenty Four + ACF/ACFE only. I see you have “2 Must-Use Plugins” on your plugins screen tho. These are custom plugins that are loaded from code, and cannot be enabled/disabled in the UI.

Can you check your /wp-content/mu-plugins/ folder? You might have some custom plugin/code which could break the feature in there. Try to rename the mu-plugins folder into something like mu-plugins-old to disable any code in there.

Regards.