A friend of a friend called me in need of some technical help with her WordPress website. For the last few months, her page visual editor was blank with no text, images or buttons, even though her posts did have content. It had meant that she hadn’t updated her content and was in desperate need to do so.
As it had been a while since the issue started she couldn’t remember what she had done just previously to it starting. She thought it may have been after a WordPress update.
I tried the usual troubleshooting process of:
- clear browser cache
- deactivating all plugins
- change theme
But none of these had an effect so I did some research and came across a few support threads and posts:
- Visual editor is no longer working
- Visual editor not working after 3.3 upgrade
- Visual editor not working in 3.5
- How to fix white text and missing buttons in WordPress Visual Editor
The people who had the same issue had cured the problem by doing one of these suggestions:
- Install “Use Google Libraries” plugin
- Add to your wp-config.php file: define( ‘CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS’, false );
- Download a refresh version of WordPress from WordPress.org and via ftp replace /wp-includes/js/tinymce folder
- Download a refresh version of WordPress from WordPress.org and via ftp replace /wp-includes folder
I tried all of the above and had no joy. Completely stumped.
Then I read the comments on the last post in that list, and in particular, the comment by Gregg Luhring struck a cord. I had noted in the General Settings that the site URL and WordPress URL had a colon “:” after the end of the URL. It was something I was going to check out once I had sorted this issue!
So I removed the offending colons, clicked save and had to log in again. The problem was fixed!
No, I’ve no idea why there was a colon in the WordPress and Site URL field in the first place.
I thank you Gregg Luhring.
Goes to show, it is always worth reading the comments 🙂
Ronan McDonnell
Hi Jo, your post got me thinking. I tried a few solutions and none were quite working out, so I looked for a lazy route. Why not let WP do all the work? I simply deleted my wp-config (Copying and pasting the details), got WP to create a new one and presto! Another answer for an annoying niggle.
Linda Hoopes
I had the same problem. I found that the culprit was my ad-blocker software. I white-listed my domain, and the visual editor was visible again.
Kate
Great article and a huge thanks to commenter Ronan McDonnell for the suggestion about deleting wp-config.php and doing it via the browser set up. This worked for me and also fixed and issue i was having with some erroneous icons (question marks in a diamond). Two problems in the one hit? Very thankful to have found this.
acil kredi
I had same problem but i cannt slove it. Have another way to do?
Jo Waltham
I’m afraid I don’t have anything else to suggest. Have you gone through all the suggestions above and all the other posts I’ve linked to?
GeorgeCallif
What do they mean by deleting the wp-config.php?? If you do so then you will not be able to install anything.
Jo Waltham
Hi George
I believe (but I’ve not tested) that if you delete the wpconfig.php file then the next time you browse to your website you’ll be asked to do the setup again.
Peter A
Hi all, I had the same problem and the answer for me was adding in:
define( ‘CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS’, false );
to wp-config.php
BUT doing this turned the code into
define( ‘CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS’, false );
so clearly some incompatibility with the commas.
I replaced the commas with those below, saved and the editor reappeared.
define( ‘CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS’, false );
So the lesson, once you’ve pasted in the script, SAVE, then EDIT again and see if line of code has remained the same. If it doesn’t, replace the commas and save until the code remains intact.
Jo Waltham
Yes when copying code always make sure you don’t have “curly quotes” as they will cause issues.
Tiago
Hi Jo,
I’m facing the same issues. When I checked my General Settings for site url, there is no comma. However, I have recently changed to https and there is still with http. I have created a rule through cloudflare to force https and I have no clue what is causing the editor to be blank.
Tim Blankenship
I had this problem this morning. Clearing the browser cache solved it for me.
Bruno
The “Add to your wp-config.php file: define( ‘CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS’, false );” solution worked for me!
Thanks!