WordPress – Widgets not draging or saving?

Sorry – don’t believe that “solution” right now. Have you tried:

– deactivating all plugins to see if this resolves the problem? If this works, re-activate the plugins one by one until you find the problematic plugin(s).

– switching to the default theme to rule out any theme-related problems?

– resetting the plugins folder by FTP or phpMyAdmin? Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems.

@esmi

Sure thing. I’m a web designer. Just working on a brand new install of 2.9.1 for a client, with no active (or installed) plugins whatsoever.

I am using a theme by RocketTheme which requires widgets in various places, but initially they wouldn’t drag n’ drop. Then they would drag n’ drop but wouldn’t save.

I have RocketTheme on the job just incase it is a problem with their theme (quite possible) but they did ask me which version of PHP I was using, so just for the record:

WordPress 2.9.1
PHP 5.2.12
MySQL 5.1
Firefox 3.6

Your PHP version is fine. WP only need PHP 4 but some plugins and perhaps the odd theme might depend on PHP 5 functions.

The real clincher here would to temporarily switch to the default theme and test the widgets. If they work, then that squarely places the problem in the new theme. If they don’t work in the default theme, the issue is elsewhere.

I will give that a go and report back.

Many thanks Esmi.

Ah!

Same problem. I’ve switched to the WordPress Default 1.6 by Michael Heilemann, but same problem.

Some of the Widgets that belong to the other theme are no longer displayed (as expected), but on trying to drag n’ drop any widget over to the bar on the right doesn’t work.

I’ll give it my ‘take a bath and have a cup of tea’ approach. Firefox is not draining any more than 1-2% CPU, so I don’t suspect it’s a JavaScript issue, but then CPU powere isn’t being drained on my server either….

I’ll try my ‘out to lunch’ *fix* approach and report back in a while…

A re-upload of the wp-admin and wp-includes folders from a fresh download of WordPress might fix it.

No need to wait.

Widgets became drag n’ droppable after a waiting of not-very-long-at-all < (1 min), but now which ever widget I drag over Pages/Arcives/Recent Posts/Calendar I get this exact Ipsum text displayed in every Widget:

“wpCompressionTest Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetuer mollis sapien urna ut a. Eu nonummy condimentum fringilla tempor pretium platea vel nibh netus Maecenas. Hac molestie amet justo quis pellentesque est ultrices interdum nibh Morbi. Cras mattis pretium Phasellus ante ipsum ipsum ut sociis Suspendisse Lorem. Ante et non molestie. Porta urna Vestibulum egestas id congue nibh eu risus gravida sit. Ac augue auctor Ut et non a elit massa id sodales. Elit eu Nulla at nibh adipiscing mattis lacus mauris at tempus. Netus nibh quis suscipit nec feugiat eget sed lorem et urna. Pellentesque lacus at ut massa consectetuer ligula ut auctor semper Pellentesque. Ut metus massa nibh quam Curabitur molestie nec mauris congue. Volutpat molestie elit justo facilisis neque ac risus Ut nascetur tristique. Vitae sit lorem tellus et quis Phasellus lacus tincidunt nunc Fusce. Pharetra wisi Suspendisse mus sagittis libero lacinia Integer consequat ac Phasellus. Et urna ac cursus tortor aliquam Aliquam amet tellus volutpat Vestibulum. Justo interdum condimentum In augue congue tellus sollicitudin Quisque quis nibh.”

@esmi

Have re-downloaded WP 2.9.1 from www.remarpro.com and copies up super fresh files/folders wp-admin and wp-includes…

Still using WordPress Default 1.6 by Michael Heilemann, I drag n’ drop ‘any’ widget and still got the same “wpCompressionTest Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…

However! I dragged over another Widget and the controls came up OK, now every widget I drag over (using the default theme) works fine!

It’s very odd whatever is happening.

Thanks for your replies Esmi

I really don’t get what’s happening here…

I’ve put a conpletely fresh copy of WP 2.9.1 on my server. No plugins whatsoever, no themes, empty database – nothing at all

I go to the Widgets page and find I can’t drag n’ drop anything…
This is for both Firefox 3.6 and IE 8.

I don’t know if I’m missing something obvious, but so far I’m not really sure what conclusions to draw…

Have you got javascript enabled in both browsers? Could anything be blocking javascript (eg firewall)?

Hi,

Generally, it is due to the plugins which creates this kind of problem….so you can either deactivate all plugins from database…for the details refer this:

Deactivate Plugins From Database

And reactivate one-by-one to find the culprit…or rename the Plugins directory via FTP.

2. From wordpress admin area -> Appearance-> Widgets under Screen options, try the Enable Accessibility Mode.

3. Delete or refresh the browser cache.

Thanks,

Shane G.

“wpCompressionTest” sounds like some sort of plugin or possibly a corrupt file somewhere.

Thanks esmi & shane for your replies.

I took the server offline for a while and removed the HDD to do a complete virus scan – just in case that might have caused the problem but it came up completely clean.

So far I have this:

Totally new install of WP 2.9.1
Completely empty database.

Using default theme.
No added themes
No added plugins
No active plugins

I modify wp-config-sample.php with details for my database and add the unique keys.

I go to mydomain.com/wp-admin/install.php

I enter the blog title and my email address, then using the generated password I login… all good so far.

I then go to Appearance > Widgets… and find I can drag n’ drop anything.

This is the same for IE8 and FF 3.6

Javascript is enabled in both browsers.

Everything I’m using…

Windows 2008 Web Server
IIS7
PHP 5.2.12
MySQL 5.1
Firefox 3.6
IE8

I have other WP installs on this same server and I have the same problem with all of them – i’m certain the widgets for these sites used to work (drag n’ drop) but now they don’t.

@esmi if you need to contact me through regular email, I can set up another test install on a different domain name and send you the login details…

I’m a bit suspicious of my PHP install. This is a newly installed server by me but the PHP non-thred-safe install was one of those automatic ones – which I’m a bit suspicious of, so I think I’ll uninstall and configure PHP manually…

Thanks for your time, will post back the results…

Just reporting back

Have removed and re-installed PHP 5.2.12 but am still unable to drag widgets with IE or FF. I’m also unable to drag n’ drop on the Server itself (just to follow up on your suggestion of ‘firewall’)

I have iGoogle as my home page and can drag n’ drop to re-arrange my home page with no problem.

Many thanks for your replies both of you, but I must admit to be running out of ideas here, from what I can see it does look like a WordPress issue. I might try rolling-back to an earlier version maybe 2.8.6 to see if that fixes it…

Will post back