If you’re using WordPress for your website or blog, this post is for you.
I’ve seen this problem twice in the last 24 hours and don’t know how many WordPress users this could be affecting so I thought I’d try to get the word out.
I never use Internet Explorer (IE) web browser, so never bother to look at my blog there. But the other day I was making some changes and thought I’d check it out in IE. To my surprise, the content in my sidebars was nowhere to be found. It was visible when viewing my site in Chrome, Firefox and Flock, but not IE.
I did a little bit of research and it looks like this is not too uncommon a problem. It’s caused when some extra code somehow ends up in the body of one of your blog posts. After doing some digging around I found an easy fix. This fix came in handy today when I was at a client site looking at their blog in IE, and lo and behold, no content was visible in the sidebars.
So how can you tell if you have the problem and what is the fix I used on my site and my client’s site?
To tell if you have the problem, open Internet Explorer and go to the home page of your your WordPress blog/website (in the two cases I saw this happen the sidebars were only missing on the home page, not the pages for individual posts).
Can you see the content that’s supposed to be in your WordPress blog’s sidebars? If so, you’re good and can leave now.
If you can’t, here’s what to do (this fix worked in the two instances I saw this problem, though I don’t know if it will work for everyone):
First, scroll down to the very bottom of your site’s home page. Chances are you’ll see the headline of one of your blog posts but the body of the post is missing.
If that’s the case, go to the Edit Post section of your WordPress site’s admin area and find the post that was cut off on your home page.
Click on that post to edit it and then click on the “HTML” tab when the post is in edit mode. There is likely a whole bunch of code there that makes no sense to you.
To get rid of it, go back to the “Visual” tab in edit post mode, select all the text from the post and copy it. Then go back to the “HTML” tab and delete everything. Lastly, go back to the “Visual” tab and paste the text of blog post that you just copied there.
All that’s left to do at this point is save the post and then visit your homepage again in IE and your sidebar content should be visible again!
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Adam:
Great tip. I use a Macintosh and don’t have IE. Because of that, I don’t tend to see how my blog looks on a windows machine. I’m going to check it out now. Thank you.
Aloha, Bob
Adam,
I don’t know how to thank you for this post! I have been driving myself crazy trying out TONS of different themes thinking it was the theme that was at fault for my sidebar not showing up only in IE on the home page only. I didn’t even notice the post that was cut off until I read your post. Not only did you experience the same problem I did, you took YOUR time to share it with others so that we didn’t throw our computers out the window, which was exactly where mine was heading LOL.
With much appreciation,
Julie Weishaar
http://newhorizons123.com
Hey Adam,
FYI: http://blog.newhorizons123.com/my-technical-angel/
Thanks again
Wow! Thanks, Julie!
Adam,
Thank you so much… i would have never thought of this. i spent the last 2 hours almost going crazy.
Rajashri.