Block Widgets: Lost Widgets after viewing widgets.php

[supernovia]

Quick summary

On at least two older themes, a visit to widgets.php seems to cause all widgets to go inactive, without even saving changes on the page.

Steps to reproduce

1. Use an older theme. This has been reproduced in Vigilance, Digg 3, and in an internal theme so far
2. Add widgets via Customize. Save changes (Alternatively, use a site with existing widgets)
3. View the site; note the widgets are there
4. Go to widgets.php. The widgets are immediately deactivated, without saving. No active widget area appears there.

NOTE: this also happened when viewing Customize > Widgets for the first time since block widgets were enabled, but I haven't been able to reproduce that consistently, because most of my test sites now use block widgets. I did notice, though, that after the initial loss, I can add widgets back in through the Customizer without them being lost when I revisit that tool.

What you expected to happen

Widgets should not automatically deactivate, regardless of theme.

What actually happened

Widgets are lost on some themes and can only be brought back through Customize, where inactive widgets don't exist.

Context

Forums post: https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/sidebar-disappeared-16/

Screen recording: https://cloudup.com/ckC1ZLmESLd

Operating System

No response

Browser

No response

Simple, Atomic or both?

No response

Theme-specific issue?

Vigilance + Digg 3 + an internal theme (ping me on slack for details)

Other notes

I haven't been able to duplicate this in a handful of other themes I checked, so when I first saw this error, I thought it was limited to that one internal theme. However, I experienced it again with this user today. I spot checked more themes, and have so far only seen the issue in two.

Reproducibility

Consistent

Severity

Some (< 50%)

Available workarounds?

Yes, difficult to implement (needs help from HE then user has to redo their widgets)

Workaround details

EDIT: HEs can use a sticker p7DVsv-cqD-p2 to fix this, then the user can re-add their widgets.

[supernovia]

cc @mattwondra who saw this issue in action with another theme 😬

[supernovia]

Another case here, probably. Site uses Digg 3 column; I confirmed in my test that it does the same thing, although interestingly, the second column of widgets didn't fall out. Just the first. However, I could not manage any of them via the widgets.php page. It just says "Inactive" there.

https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/how-do-i-restore-my-widgets-2

[kelasante]

As a workaround, it looks like the HE in 3471171-hc disabled Block Widgets and the user was able to drag inactive widgets to the sidebar using the Classic widgets interface.

[supernovia]

Ah! I was out for a while and must have missed that option. Thank you! It'd still be good if we could fix whatever is making the widgets fall out.

[mikeicode]

I believe we ran into this on the (retired) Verity theme also, all widgets were inactive. 31896520-hc

[Gustavo-Hilario]

The issue was also reported on 4394491-zen.

I disabled Block Widgets and suggested the user try adding their inactive widgets again.

Sorry, I mistakenly closed the issue 😵‍💫

[formosattic]

4395017-zd-woothemes

[supernovia]

Another case with Tarski in this thread: https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/why-do-my-widgets-in-the-sidebar-keep-disappearing/

Applying workaround for now.

[inaikem]

@dpasque, @cometgrrl, flagging for your attention 🙏

[inaikem]

Another case here with the retired Choco theme: 4399721-zd-woothemes

Note: this site's widget page only shows an "Inactive widgets" area.

Enabled Block Widgets and moved their inactive widgets back to the now-visible Sidebar widget area.

[sharonlaker19]

Another one: 4399758-zen I've added the sticker as a workaround for now.

[jerrysarcastic]

Also reported in https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/block-widgets-widget-disappearance-and-visibility-issues.

I've toggled the block widgets sticker in the RC for now which has restored access to the deactivated widgets

[rinazrina]

Another report: 4042754-hc

They're using a retired theme, Enterprise.

I disabled the block widget from Blog RC as a workaround.

[dpasque]

Tagging @Automattic/flow-patrol-create based on issue content

[dpasque]

Also pinged internally: p1635173245005700-slack-C029HCKPXP0

[KirkwallDay]

Another case here: 32389054-hc

[mreishus]

I've seen a related issue with new widgets not saving on .com simple sites. This seems to happen with newer themes too, so split into a separate issue: https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/57330

[nickpagz]

Another report here 23517333-hc A really old theme, INove.

[mreishus]

After commenting out this line in core, visiting /wp-admin/widgets.php when using the theme Vigilance, the widgets are not immediately deactivated. However, they still fail to load in widgets.php. This isn't a fix, but helps decode what is happening: retrieve_widgets() tries to "find lost widgets", and saves changes to the database. However, whatever is causing widgets.php to not find the widget sections from the older themes, is causing the retrieve_widgets() mechanism to immediately deactivate those widgets upon viewing.

[david-binda]

I have a patch for review & testing in D69021-code . Would appreciate some eyes and testing on it, before deploying.

[sharonlaker19]

Another one at 31263153-hc Used the sticker workaround for now.

[sharonlaker19]

Another one at 29986512-hc Used the sticker workaround but there were a bunch of invalid block widgets leftover that we had to delete manually. They'd also like to be notified when this is fixed, thanks!

[JoshuaGoode]

32412225-hc

Simple site user with retired iNove theme.

They reported that they accessed Customize > widgets and all widgets were moved to inactive.

[chad1008]

Closing this issue, which should be fixed by D69021-code. Please reopen if needed.

[Greatdane]

Hi everyone 👋 Just a quick note to let you all know @Automattic/bug-herders have finished following up with affected users reported in this thread.

Thanks for the reports, please let us know here if you see any future recurrence of the issue.

[sharonlaker19]

Just had a report on 20076058-hc They're using the Colinear theme by Automattic

[Greatdane]

Closing this for now - don't seem to have any more reports.

[jromales]

A new report on 4609957-zd-woothemes - using retired Temi theme. I disabled Block Widgets in BRC and asked user to drag and drop from "Inactive Widgets" in the Classic Widgets interface.

[ahmadbaig1]

More reports- 4704973-zd-woothemes - Outspoken (theme) 4712777-zd-woothemes - Port (theme)

When adding widgets to the sidebar from Appearance> Widgetssection, the widgets are going to the Inactive widgets placeholder.

Adding widgets through Apperance> Customizer> Widgets is ok.

[inaikem]

Reopening the issue for review. @Greatdane, can you and @Automattic/dotcom-triage-pa-group try to reproduce @ahmadbaig1's new report above?

@chad1008, if there are any recent updates you can think of that might be related, we'd appreciate any help!

[Greatdane]

@inaikem I played around with the above two themes (Outspoken and Port), but was unable to replicate on my test site. I wonder if this is just something affecting older sites (both reports are from sites > 5 years old with retired themes)

[Greatdane]

if @Automattic/dotcom-triage-pa-group are able to have a look at this again, that would be great! This issue seems like it only affects older sites who had a classic widget setup, making it very hard to reproduce.

[csabarakasz]

More of this issue: 4796978-zd-woothemes theme (twenty sixteen)

As a temporary solution, I disabled block widgets in BlogRC.

[formosattic]

@inaikem , I've tried as well, but same @Greatdane , I'm unable to reproduce the issue.

Also want to point out another Block Widget issue that PA Triage hasn't been able to reproduce on a test site, and can only be experienced on users' site: https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/58835

[inaikem]

Thanks @Greatdane, @formosattic 👍

@chad1008, would you be able to check if this is related to anything that's been deployed since the initial patch?

[chad1008]

Hm. So far I'm not able to reproduce it at all, which I know others have noted... if it's only present on impacted sites that does indeed make it difficult to dig into.

would you be able to check if this is related to anything that's been deployed since the initial patch

It's interesting how site-specific this is, and that it sounds like it's happening on older sites. If I had to guess (and I want to stress this is a theory, not something I can confirm) I think it's possible this is less to do with a recent change and more to do with something inherent to those older sites that makes them an exception to the patch. Again, that's just a theory.

cc @david-binda in case you have any insights from your work on that previous patch (though I know it was several months ago, so may not be something you have ideas on off the top of your head)

[formosattic]

more to do with something inherent to those older sites that makes them an exception to the patch.

@chad1008 : Would you have a hunch for how old those sites would be?

I ran into another block widgets issue that only happens on the user site, https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/61727 , and the site was about a year old (created on Dec 2020).

[kelasante]

The issue happened in 23454328-hc. As a temporary solution, I disabled Block Widgets in Blog RC. User has Twenty Eleven Theme.

[supernovia]

I wonder if this would be easier to reproduce and catch the issue if we:

• Started a site with block widgets off
• Set up a handful of test sites with different themes activated
• Copied the sample site to the test sites (IDK if we'd have to turn block widgets on or whether they'd get toggled via copy)

[Robertght]

I've moved this to the Triaged column for now as we cannot start with a classic theme in my tests.

[Addison-Stavlo]

moved this from Triaged to Prioritized - Bugs in HE Triaging Board (new bugs) 13 days ago

Agreed this is problematic. However we probably wont be able to get to this soon due to the prioritization of other FSE issues and the impact this causes as we focus users towards FSE.

[ai2n]

Seems the "Heart And Style by MeridianThemes" is also affected by this.

[Gustavo-Hilario]

I think the user on 5239817-zen is also having this issue. However, widgets are also missing in the Inactive widgetsarea.

Theme: Rowling

[pauljacobson]

Hi there @cometgrrl , do you have any feedback on when the team may be able to investigate this issue further?

[davipontesblog]

@vajrasar could you work with the PA team (cc @inaikem) this week to bring this one up with the proper Landscape area (not sure whether this falls into Create, Expand, etc) and see if we are able to prioritize it? I am not sure what the other competing priorities are but would like to bring it up at least for awareness - it seems to still affect several users, here are some things I recommend we do here:

• Try and understand better the volume of impact this has
• See if we can scope the issue a little more clearly, it seems to be very general - perhaps we can pinpoint a few specific scenarios and break this issue down into a few more specific ones that may help to fix it faster?

Let's see what we can do together here 👍

[cometgrrl]

Hi there @cometgrrl , do you have any feedback on when the team may be able to investigate this issue further?

@Addison-Stavlo would be the best to answer this. If Cylon doesn't have time still to look at it, we can try to pass it to @Automattic/dotcom-janitors.

[Addison-Stavlo]

If Cylon doesn't have time still to look at it, we can try to pass it to https://github.com/orgs/Automattic/teams/dotcom-janitors.

this would be fantastic.

[aleone89]

Another report here: hc-34898229 - theme: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/themes/lekh/ (third party). Installing classic widgets restored the widgets to their location in bulk.

[daledupreez]

I am not able to reproduce this on my test site, where I tested with multiple themes listed above, including setting up widgets with the Block Editor disabled for widgets, and then enabling the Block Editor for widgets (I used this full flow for three of the themes).

I did trip over a case with Outspoken where the widget preview was only 8px tall, but in no case did I end up with any inactive widgets. But it's not clear whether the issue is related to specific widgets or something specific to the sites that is causing the widget conversion logic to behave poorly.

Hard-to-see widgets in Outspoken

[github-actions[bot]]

Support References

This comment is automatically generated. Please do not edit it.

• [ ] 4394491-zen
• [ ] 4395017-zen
• [ ] 4399721-zen
• [ ] 4399758-zen
• [ ] 4609957-zen
• [ ] 4704973-zen
• [ ] 4712777-zen
• [ ] 4796978-zen
• [ ] 5239817-zen
• [ ] 5633975-zen
• [ ] 6255245-zen