Matt

Cenay,

I have determined the current issue (once the original problem of the shortcodes not working at all has been resolved). Due to how Oxygen Builder stores the page content in the form of post metadata as a JSON string, Starfish is not able to determine if the page has a Starfish shortcode or not. Starfish is checking for the standard $post->post_content and parsing through looking for any Starfish shortcode tags. Because this “post_content” object is now empty when the page uses Oxygen Builder the shortcodes are not detected resulting in all of the necessary assets to not get loaded (JavaScript and CSS).

We would have to develop an additional path for determining whether a page has a Starfish shortcode in use or not that has specific logic for Oxygen Builder. This would be the case for any of Starfish shortcodes not just the testimonial one. We are starting to design a method for doing this and hope to get this supported over the next couple of releases. In the meantime, the shortcodes should be functioning as expected outside of Oxygen Builder.

You can track the support for Oxygen Builder on our roadmap: https://app.loopedin.io/starfish-reviews

Please respond to your original email sent to [email protected] as that is our official support channel. I just sent another reply to this to push to the top of your inbox.

Thank you, @cenay, for this additional information. Two things:

1. There definitely appears to be some sort of conflict with the theme most likely; unless something went wrong during the initial installation of the plugin. Can you try uninstalling and reinstalling the Starfish Reviews plugin? I am working on getting a copy of the Oxygen Builder so I can troubleshoot using the same environment as you. If you happen to have a way for me to troubleshoot directly in your environment (support credentials) then I can start investigating sooner. You can respond to the support thread regarding this option. I have double-checked and I can successfully render the shortcodes using WP Classic, Elementor, Divi, and Beaver Builders.
2. We do have multi-site options for those who manage multiple website clients like yourself. You can then pass the cost of this multi-site license (i.e. our Entrepreneur license supports 10 WP sites). The idea is that you then pass the cost of this on to your clients at a more economic level.

@craft37, thank you for this information. I will work on getting my environment setup with this theme and the ACF plugin to try and reproduce the issue. However, I am not having much luck finding this particular theme – is it possible for you to share an install package so I can test with it? Otherwise, if you are willing, you can share admin access to your site and I can take a look directly.

Please initiate a support request through our official support channel at [email protected] and we can continue to troubleshoot this issue.

Thank you, @mps1, we appreciate you taking the time to rate the plugin and provide your experience. It means a lot to us here at Starfish as we strive to deliver what the community finds most useful.

@craft37, I am sorry you are experiencing trouble using the new testimonial shortcodes. Can you please confirm your current theme and/or page builder being used?

Also, you only mention the “display” shortcode, is the “form” shortcode working as expected? For example:

[starfish testimonial="form"]

One more thing, can you confirm you have testimonials available for display, you have successfully migrated all of the Rich Reviews over to Starfish and see them listed under the Testimonials page within the WP Admin menu?

@cenay, first off please use our official support channel at [email protected] – there will be a higher chance for a more rapid response there. Depending on whether the email address the message comes from is associated with a Premium license or not will depend on how fast a response is received. This forum is used by the plugin authors as community support, although we do check it periodically to ensure issues are getting addressed. I appreciate your understanding.

NOTE: Please notice that on the Testimonials page, you will find an in-line Help icon next to the page title. This will open a support dialogue to the Testimonial shortcode instructions

Some clarification on the actual migration process (addressing your request for a “migration guide”)

The migration from Rich Reviews is as simple as clicking the “Migrate Now” button provided when initially installing Starfish Reviews in the WP Admin Notification after installing Starfish. If this notification failed to show up for whatever reason you can access the same from within the WP Admin under Starfish Reviews -> Settings -> Testimonials.

See the following instructions now available.

NOTE: Please update to the latest version of Starfish Reviews (3.1.3) as it has some fixes to properly report the progress of the Rich Reviews migration and its completion; as illustrated in the above instructions.

Now, regarding your main issue with respect to the Shortcodes not rendering their expected content.

There appear to be some conflicts with your specific theme or page builder. Can you please provide me with further details on the theme and/or page builder you are using and I will see if I can reproduce this issue? I appreciate it and welcome to Starfish Reviews!

In the meantime, can you try and place the same shortcodes in a standard WordPress page outside the page builder you’re using just to see if that results in anything different?

NOTE: You noticed that we didn’t provide a Testimonial’s Average shortcode support in the free version. This option is available within our Premium version under the Collections feature where not only Testimonials can be displayed with more options, but also any imported reviews from different public profiles (e.g., Facebook, Google, Trustpilot, etc.)

@cenay, thank you for letting us know. I have updated the link you referenced with the appropriate destination for future users. The same can be found here:

https://docs.starfish.reviews/category/201-testimonials

@aheadair, I am sorry to hear you had some bad experiences with our plugin. This is definitely not the expectation, we would love to try and resolve your specific issues if you give us a chance. Can you please send the details of what is happening to [email protected]? Also, just to be sure, are you using the latest version of Starfish Reviews (3.1.x) as it has some changes that should help with these kinds of conflicts.

We look forward to resolving your issues and helping you get the full value of the plugin.

@eddiecarter, Can you please confirm what version you are using? Can you please confirm that any Starfish Reviews database tables are also deleted before trying to reinstall. Looks like the install got hung up originally and didn’t finish creating the necessary tables due to a partial install.

Also, if you could please send your confirmation of these items to our Premium Support using the following form, that would help a lot in getting the proper attention to your request.

https://starfish.reviews/contact/

Hello @mihirdave97, thank you for reaching out. If you are on the free version then you wouldn’t be able to access the Profiles feature as this is only available in the Premium version. Can you please confirm that you are actually using a Premium version of the plugin if so, please reach out through our website support form so we can assist you there.

https://starfish.reviews/contact/

To confirm, the Profiles feature does accept multiple Google profiles, so long as they are different (different Place ID or Different Search Query). If this is not happening, then we may have a bug that needs to be investigated.

Please use our contact form mentioned above for Premium Support.

@cenay, sounds like you are frustrated, I can understand, we do our best to donate our time to these free plugins. You are more than welcome to fix the issues yourself as the code is opensource and available for you to do so.

Regarding the “free” aspect of Rich Reviews features migrating to a paid plugin. Starfish Reviews does offer a free version, as you can plainly see on our website and in the WordPress plugin library. The features you now enjoy in Rich Reviews will be available in our free version of Starfish Reviews as well. There will be some added enhancements (currently not in Rich Reviews) that will only be available in our premium version as they are integrated into our other premium features; one of the reasons we are combining the two plugins.

Now, to clarify, “resolution” doesn’t always mean “fixed”. As far as we are concerned this issue is resolved as “won’t fix”.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Thank you for raising this issue, we have just released a new version (3.0.36) that hopefully resolves this issue. Please let us know once updated, if you continue to experience the problem.

I am sorry you are experiencing this issue, however, we are no longer resolving issues for this plugin as we work to migrate its features into our main Starfish Reviews plugin. This is about 50% completed thus far and once ready for Beta testing an email will be sent out to all current users advising of the opportunity to try it out. We expect everyone will happy with the change as we will be integrating the current features of Rich Reviews with some new enhancements.

@shineonagency, thank you for raising this issue. We have not fully moved towards PHP8 just yet, as many are still on 7.4. I noticed that our deployment script needed some updating to account for the error you are seeing. I have made this change and will be deploying a new version 3.0.36. Once available, please let me know if this resolves your issue.