Boxes Disappeared From Site, Just Like That. All Of Them, No Longer Displayed.

[presentis 0]

While adding content yesterday, all in boxes, they (the boxes) just stopped displaying. All of them, every category on the site.

No configs were modified, just repeating the same "create new box, choose set, add content, publish, refresh page to see result, adjust text, refresh page to see modified." operation.

At some point, that last step showed the page with the message below instead of boxes. All categories (box sets) no longer displaying. Instead, I see this.

What happened? Any ideas to fix this? (sample site at : http://cyclerob.presentis.ca)

Boxes

Add Box Posts To Activate.

Add Posts →

[Rob 547]

Please verify that boxes are still in the appropriate template in Drag & Drop. If they are, make sure that in Page Options, there's nothing deactivating them.

Also, on the specific page where you lost them, make sure you don't have them deactivated in PL Meta settings.

[presentis 0]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the quick reply. I have checked the areas you suggest, and all seems normal. Yet the boxes don't display, anywhere.

They really just... stopped being there. On every page. The site uses boxes on most pages, in different configs. Now any page that had boxes no longer has them, just that "Add box posts to activate". Weird. Feels like losing a gear while driving - "What happened to 3rd gear?" It's just gone.

The page that was receiving new content was this : http://cyclerob.presentis.ca/velos-bicycles-bicyclettes-montreal-magasin/velos-de-route/, to which we were adding box content. Worked fine until it didn't. No configs were touched or modified. Was on 1.2.8, this happened, updated to 1.2.9, still no return of the boxes.

FWIW, I had a limit set to 6 boxes, and the last one I uploaded was the 6th. Then this happened. Adjusted the limit to 20 (in case, for some weird reason, that would change something) but nothing.

Any other ideas or suggestions?

Thanks,

Bernard

[Rob 547]

Bernard,

Make sure the boxes are in a set (just in case something removed them from their box-set).

If nothing works, you may need to implement http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/boxer/ in place of the regular boxes. I'm unsure why boxes would vanish like that.

[presentis 0]

Interestingly : it seems that no matter what we do, the boxes never appear to be in a set. When you click boxes to see all posts, you see the title, content, image, and set (so far so good). When you click the post to Edit, all Box Set checkboxes are unchecked. Check the right box set, update, unchecked when screen refreshes.

Again, no configs were changed before this happened.

I have just created a new box, similar to the others - just to validate - and the same thing happens again.

Would re-installing Pagelines correct this? Would I lose data?

Questions: Does boxer have the same features as the Box in pagelines? Can I use and control boxer from the pagelines interface as easily as I used these boxes, before this happened? Do you know how easily the content can be migrated to one from the other (or do we have to redo everything?)

We're testing Pagelines with this site, and I was loving it until this. I'd rather avoid the trouble involved with adding another plugin...

I appreciate your help on this, by the way. What was lost in vital functionality is at least made up for in support, which is cool.

[presentis 0]

Follow up: At some point in the afternoon, the boxes reappeared. Our integrator just called in to say "I just created a random box, saved in draft, I see the others". Nothing was done or modified,, which leaves us to suspect server issues..? Ticket opened with server co, they're good about these things so we're expecting follow up.

Either way, we really appreciate your help Rob, I especially like when people propose real alternate solutions (the boxer option). So far, so good, as far as pagelines tests go.

Cheers!

[James B 436]

Hi there, thanks for letting us know, I'm glad they've come back. If you find out exactly what caused them to vanish please let us know as it could help out other users in the future.

[presentis 0]

Will do.

Quick question; is the text content of boxes SEO-friendly? In other words, in its current state, if we have a product-based site, and every product name, picture and written description is in a box, can it be indexed and findable by Google and co.? If so, would it lead to the main /products page? Which page would get linked to by search engines?

Let me know if this is discussed somewhere else, didn't find it. Would have looked into it this weekend, but then I had to find our boxes

Thanks,

[James B 436]

Hi again, yes boxes, banners etc do get indexed by google.

Check this link for the full info http://www.pagelines.com/forum/topic/22284-seo-for-pagelines/page__hl__seo :-)