FAQ

12 FAQs

  • Why I don't see any changes after settings update?

    The reason could be related to the cache. Clear your browser cache and if you have a cache plugin active clear also the server cache using that plugin. Then refresh the page where you want to see the modifications.

    To learn more about cache visit the WordPress documentation page https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Optimization/Caching

    If you still don’t see any changes check if you have really saved your settings. After successful savings, you should always see a confirmation message with a green border.

  • Sticky menu not working.

    First of all check if the Sticky Menu is active in Freesoul Settings => Header => Main Menu, if it’s active and you don’t see the sticky menu on scroll, here you will find the most common reason

    The sticky menu needs more space than the normal one, due to the image that appears on its left (or right for rtl installations). If the screen is not wide enough, the sticky menu layout would be broken. Freesoul automatically prevents the menu to become sticky on scroll for screens that don’t allow enough space to have all the menu items aligned in one single row.

    If you have too many menu items, try to decrease the menu font size or the menu items distances in Freesoul Settings, if you want the sticky menu for narrow screens.

  • Why I see an hamburger menu as main menu?

    Probably your screen is not wide enough to display all the menu items in one single row.

    Freesoul automatically converts the normal desktop menu to an hamburger menu for screens that don’t allow enough space, in another case the menu layout would appear broken.

    If you have too many menu items, try to decrease the menu font size or the menu items distances in Freesoul Settings.

  • Why the set width doesn't work?

    Be sure you are not using a small screen. In the mobile version many widths become full widths.

  • Why my sidebar is not displayed?

    Attention! When a widgets area is empty it will not be displayed anywhere, so if you expect to see  a sidebar on your website and you know that in Freesoul Settings that sidebar is active, and you are asking to your self what is wrong, go to Appearance => Widgets and check that that sidebar is populated.

  • Why people receive a failure message after the contact form submission?

    Normally people could receive a failure message for the following reasons:

    • they have tried to submit the form too frequently triggering the anti spam protection function that is activated when the contact form handler is called earlier than 30 seconds after the last submission by the same IP address
    • the server that is hosting your site had a problem during the submission
    • you are using a cache plugin different from WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache and you didn’t delete the cache after you saved the contact form

    Probably you need more explanations regarding the last reason. Freesoul has an anti spam system for post comments, contact forms and newsletter optins.

    Regarding the contact form, one of the feature of the anti spam is a secret key generated during every contact form update. On the front end every contact form has an alphanumeric code (visible if you inspect the DOM). The front end code and the secret key are not the same, but through a back-end algorithm they can be compared to understand if the contact form submission comes really from the page that includes the contact form or from a spams robot that automatically sent a request to the contact form handler. This feature together with other anti spams features drastically reduces the amount of spams coming from the contact form, but if you have cached the page that includes the contact form before its last update, it will not work because on the front end the alphanumeric code will not fit with the secret key, simply because the cached page refers to an old version of the contact form, having an old secret key.

    For the most common cache plugins mentioned above, Freesoul automatically deletes the cache when a contact form is updated, for all the other cache plugins you need to delete the cache every time you update a contact form.

     

    If you are a WordPress developer and you are asking to yourself why don’t use the built-in WordPress nonce for anti spam purpose, the answer is: the nonce system works perfectly for the back-end but not for the front-end, because every time the nonce code is changed by WordPress, you will not know it and if the page that includes the contact form is cached, people will receive the failure message because the nonce will be not valid. On the contrary generating a secret key when the contact form is updated, if the users has read the Freesoul documentation knows that he has to clear the cache if a caching plugin that is not expected by Freesoul is installed.

  • Why people receive a failure message after the Mailchimp optin submission?

    s to clear the cache if a caching plugin that is not expected by Freesoul is installed.

    Why people receive a failure message after the Mailchimp optin submission?

     

    Normally you could receive a failure message for several reasons:

    • you have tried to submit  too frequently triggering the anti spam protection function
    • your Mailchim api key set in Mailchimp Settings is wrong or not set
    • the server that is hosting your site had a problem during the submission
    • the newsletter server had a problem during the submission
    • you are using a cache plugin different from WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache and you didn’t delete the cache after you updated the Mailchimp settings

    Probably you need more explanations regarding the last reason. Freesoul has an anti spam system for post comments, contact forms and newsletter optins.

    Regarding the Mailchimp optin, one of the feature of the anti spam is a secret key generated during the Mailchimp settings update. On the front end every Mailchimp optin has an alphanumeric code (visible if you inspect the DOM). The front end code and the secret key are not the same, but through a back-end algorithm they can be compared to understand if the Mailchimp submission comes really from the page that includes the optin or from a spams robot that automatically sends requests to optin handler. This feature together with other anti spams features drastically reduces the amount of request that from the server hosting your site are sent to the Mailchimp server, but if you have cached the page that includes the optin before last Mailchimp Settings update, it will not work because on the front end the alphanumeric code will not fit with the secret key, simply because the cached page refers to an old version of the Mailchimp settings, having an old secret key.

    For the most common cache plugins mentioned above, Freesoul automatically deletes the cache when the Mailchimp settings are updated, for all the other cache plugins you need to delete the cache every time you update the Mailchimp Settings.

    If you are a WordPress developer and you are asking to yourself why don’t use the built-in WordPress nonce for anti spam purpose, the answer is: the nonce system works perfectly for the back-end but not for the front-end, because every time the nonce code is changed by WordPress, you will not know it and if the page that includes the optin is cached, people will receive the failure message because the nonce will be not valid. On the contrary generating a secret key when the Mailchimp Settings are updated, if the users has read the Freesoul documentation knows that he has to clear the cache if a caching plugin that is not expected by Freesoul is installed.

  • Why I see only a coming soon instead of the entire site?

    Go to Landing Page settings and check the option “Check it to publish the site”.

    After activating the Freesoul Builder plugin, that checkbox is deactivated and all the users that are not logged in will see a Coming Soon instead of the entire site because it’s supposed that you prefer to don’t show the site in progress until it’s ready for publication. For more details look “Landing Page Settings” of this documentation.

  • Why the IP address set in Landing Page Settings doesn't work?

    When you sign up with an Internet Service Provider you will either end up with a static IP address or a dynamic IP address, depending on the nature of your account.

    A static IP address will be always the same excluding occasional times that it’s changed for technical reasons (e.g. after a storm).

    A dynamic IP address will change many times, even at every internet connections.

    Keep also in mind that an IP address doesn’t travel with you. If you took your laptop to a coffee shop and used their wireless network, that IP address would be different.

    Considering all what said above, the reasons that the IP address set in Landing Page Settings doesn’t work could be two.

    • It’s a dynamic IP address and it’s already different than what set in Landing Page Settings. In this case it’s recommended to supply username and password to people who have a dynamic IP address. You will find the settings in Landing Page Settings.
    • The person that has given you the IP address is not using his computer in the same place where he got the IP address. In this case just inform that person that he can see the site in progress only using his computer in the same place where he got the IP address. Remember that you can put multiple IPs in case people need to see the site in progress in different places, but if you realize that for someone is too complicate to understand this stuff, maybe better to give them username and password.

  • Why I don't see the advanced google map?

    You could not see the google map for three reasons:

    • you have used more than 1 map in the same page, google clearly says to don’t put multiple maps in the same page and that some errors could occur
    • your google api key is not valid
    • your domain is not validated in the google app related to your google api key

    To solve the problem don’t put more than 1 map in a page, be care to use a valid api key and validate your domain in your google app.

    The google api key and the google app understanding requires a base knowledge, if you are not a developer it will be hard for you to really understand this stuff. In case you are struggling too much remember that you can always embed the google map as iframe (style not customizable).

    In this last case, follow the steps below.

    1. Open Google Maps.
    2. Make sure the map, Street View image you’d like to embed shows up on the map.
    3. In the top left corner, click the Menu .
    4. Click Share or Embed map.
    5. At the top of the box that appears, choose Embed map.
    6. Choose the size you want, then copy the HTML embed code.
    7. Open the Visual Composer element “Google Maps” (not “Advanced Google Map”)
    8. Paste the copied code in “Map embed iframe”.

  • Can I create a Freesoul child theme?

    Of course you can do it, but consider that Freesoul for its modular system and high amount of options give you the possibility to create every sort of layouts and styles, do you really need a child theme?

    Moreover you can write your custom css in Freesoul Settings => General => Custom CSS or in Appearance => Customize => General => Custom CSS.

     

    A site build with a child theme requires higher loading time than a site built only using the parent theme (of course in the same conditions, same parent theme, same installed plugins, same server, same images, same final style and layouts …).

     

    If you need custom functionality not included neither in Freesoul nor in external plugins, you are a developer and you know what to do and you don’t want to modify the theme files, you can upload and activate Freesoul My Custom Functions plugin that you can edit in according with your needs. You will find my-custom-php.php for your PHP functions and my-custom-javascript.js for your javascript functions. So next time you will update Freesoul you will not loose your code.

     

    If you still want to create a child theme, you can use Freesoul-Child provided with Freesoul.

  • Compressed CSS doesn't work perfectly.

    If one or more page don't look as you expect using compressed CSS, it means that during the CSS cleaning process the page content wasn't the same as when you look that page. This can occurs in cases of password protected pages, pages including membership content, pages including dynamic content added by JavaScript ....

    In all these cases you have 2 options:

    • force full CSS for that page checking the related checkbox in the single page settings
    • add custom CSS for that page to compensate the missing CSS, especially if it is just a matter of few lines of code

Support

If after reading the FAQ you haven’t found anything that can really help you to solve your problem, many times you can solve or at least understand what is going on, doing one of the following simple actions.
  • Be sure that you have read the part of the documentation related to what is giving you problems.
  • Switch to a default WordPress theme to see if the problem comes from the Freesoul theme.
  • Reactivate Freesoul theme and deactivate all the plugins keeping active only Freesoul Builder to see if the problem comes from Freesoul Builder.
  • Visit our Facebook page where you could find other people that had the same problem that was already solved by our support team. Not all the issues go the FAQ, but only the most common ones.

If after these actions you still need help we will try to solve your problem as soon as possible after your request on our Support System (you can have access to our Support System if you are a member and your membership is not expired).

We know how you feel, it’s never nice to have an issue, so we will try to do the best, please just avoid to use other channels to send us your support requests because our support system would not work in that case. Unfortunately emails, messages … could probably be not seen by our stuff and you could wait for a long time for an answer that could never arrive.

If your problem depends by a bug in the software we will be really grateful for discovering it, normally in these cases, we will provide you a temporary solution for your specific case and then the bug will be definitely solved with next Freesoul version release.

If you realize that an external plugin is causing a conflict, let us know it, we will take care to inform the plugin author about the problem or eventually modify the Freesoul code if needed.