This post is one of my WP Greet Box Troubleshooting Guides series (more to come).
Symptom
You have installed WP Greet Box and found that your greeting messages do not show up.
Note that this troubleshooting guide should only be used for WP Greet Box with cache compatibility mode enabled.
Step 1: Check code embed
- Visit one of your post pages.
- Make sure there are no javascript error messages when you visit a post page.
- On your post page, do a browser View > Source on the page, then check if the following text are there:
- wp-greet-box/css/wp-greet-box.css
- id=”greet_block”
- wp-greet-box/js/functions.js
- wp-greet-box/js/onload.js
If all is there, then proceed to next step.
If wp-greet-box/css/wp-greet-box.css does not exists, it could mean that your theme does not make a call to the standard wp_head() function. You can fix this issue by manually inserting the follow between your <head> and </head> tags:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/wp-content/plugins/wp-greet-box/css/wp-greet-box.css" type="text/css" />If wp-greet-box/js/functions.js & wp-greet-box/js/onload.js does not exists, it could be that your theme does not make a call to the standard wp_footer() function. You can fix this issue by adding <?php wp_footer(); ?> into your theme’s footer.php or manually inserting the following towards the bottom of your HTML (near the </body> tag):
<script type="text/javascript" src="/wp-content/plugins/wp-greet-box/js/functions.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/wp-content/plugins/wp-greet-box/js/onload.js"></script>
If any of these are not there, you might have not installed the plugin properly. Please read the readme.txt file and then retry the installation.
Step 2: Check AJAX call
- In WP Greet Box administrative options, make sure the DEFAULT banner is active and set it’s Visitor Timeout to 0.
- On the site front-end, visit one of your post pages to see if the Greet Box shows up. If you have navigated to your post page (via any other link on your site, e.g. the homepage) you will need to copy the permalink in your address bar, open a new browser window/tab, paste the permalink into the new browser window/tab, and visit the URL directly.
If you see the default banner using the method above, everything is working fine. You can revert your DEFAULT banner’s Visitor Timeout value to 14400.
If you still do not see the default banner, proceed to the next step.
Step 3: Mimic AJAX call
- Use a HTTP request monitoring software such as Firebug with the “NET” console enabled to visit your post page.
- Look in the HTTP request log for something that looks like the following URL:
http://example.com/some/path/index.php?wpgb_public_action=query&visit_delta=14401&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fsomesite.com%2F
- Visit the URL directly to see if you get a greeting message display back (and not a blank page).
If you see the greeting message display back, then there is something else here that is preventing the javascript to retrieve the greeting message. Double check if you have any javascript errors on the post page.
If you do not see the greeting message display back, but see a blank page instead, it is a site specific permalink structure or .htaccess rewrite issue. Proceed to the next step.
Step 4: Find out what works
- Try visiting the following URL to see if anything shows up:
http://example.com/index.php?wpgb_public_action=query&visit_delta=14401&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fgoogle.com%2F
If a greeting message shows up then something is definitely wrong with URL resolution on your server. Something could be wrong with the .htaccess file, the WordPress adress or Blog address in your WordPress general settings, or the permalink settings. I’m not sure how your site structure is setup, but if you can modify your settings so that WP Greet Box can access an index.php then you should be fine.
If it doesn’t, then you should request support from me by posting a comment on the original plugin page.
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