This has been very difficult to track and I have enabled only the plugins I need (ACF and my own plugins that deal with content type creation).

I noticed that on some pages, my menus were gone, this are menus loaded from header.php so it's the same code.

I do modify the main query, by hooking onto pre_get_posts. For instance, when a post type is of a certain type, I modify the main query like so:

else if ( is_post_type_archive( 'people' ) ) {
    $query->set( 'orderby', 'meta_value' );
    // Bug: Line below causes the menu not to show.
    $query->set( 'meta_key', 'display_order' );
    $query->set( 'order', 'ASC' );
}

As the comment suggests, this line is the one that causes the whole menu to disappear:

    // Bug: Line below causes the menu not to show.
    $query->set( 'meta_key', 'display_order' );

I then went over to my wp_nav_menu invocation and drilled onto it with the debugger. It came down to post.php in these two line (around line number 1960 as of 25 Apr 2019) :

$get_posts = new WP_Query;
return $get_posts->query( $r );

When I enable the line that causes the bug, $get_posts->query( $r ); brings nothing back, when I disable it, it brings the menus back.

I compared the contents if $get_posts in its creation and of $r when bug is present and when bug is not present and the contents are exactly the same, which baffles the hell out of me.

This must be a global variable that is dirty b/c of my code and it messes up the query, so I'm probably missing a wp_reset_query() somewhere but I cannot figure where.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

For reference, here are the output I mention of the variables:

Working Output

Bug Output

This has been very difficult to track and I have enabled only the plugins I need (ACF and my own plugins that deal with content type creation).

I noticed that on some pages, my menus were gone, this are menus loaded from header.php so it's the same code.

I do modify the main query, by hooking onto pre_get_posts. For instance, when a post type is of a certain type, I modify the main query like so:

else if ( is_post_type_archive( 'people' ) ) {
    $query->set( 'orderby', 'meta_value' );
    // Bug: Line below causes the menu not to show.
    $query->set( 'meta_key', 'display_order' );
    $query->set( 'order', 'ASC' );
}

As the comment suggests, this line is the one that causes the whole menu to disappear:

    // Bug: Line below causes the menu not to show.
    $query->set( 'meta_key', 'display_order' );

I then went over to my wp_nav_menu invocation and drilled onto it with the debugger. It came down to post.php in these two line (around line number 1960 as of 25 Apr 2019) :

$get_posts = new WP_Query;
return $get_posts->query( $r );

When I enable the line that causes the bug, $get_posts->query( $r ); brings nothing back, when I disable it, it brings the menus back.

I compared the contents if $get_posts in its creation and of $r when bug is present and when bug is not present and the contents are exactly the same, which baffles the hell out of me.

This must be a global variable that is dirty b/c of my code and it messes up the query, so I'm probably missing a wp_reset_query() somewhere but I cannot figure where.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

For reference, here are the output I mention of the variables:

Working Output

• https://link.scorpiotek/y8b
• https://link.scorpiotek/cuj

Bug Output

• https://link.scorpiotek/3lq
• https://link.scorpiotek/5ui

• wp-query
• menus
• pre-get-posts

Share Improve this question asked Apr 25, 2019 at 1:17 csaboriocsaborio 11222 silver badges1313 bronze badges 2

• what's $r in return $get_posts->query( $r ); – Vishwa Commented Apr 25, 2019 at 4:15
• $r (without bug) -> drive.google/file/d/1gebnyiFzmTPxt9XAsyjuSyaBk6ewGjvF/view $r (with bug) -> drive.google/file/d/13FF-_pvwXT-rsIAdd-cE5sIclAi7y6l5/view (same output) – csaborio Commented Apr 25, 2019 at 4:44

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1 Answer 1

Sorted by: Reset to default 2

The reason for that is pretty straight forward...

In you code (at least in the part you’ve showed) the only condition you check is:

if ( is_post_type_archive( 'people' ) )

So when you’re on archive for people, this condition will be true for every WP_Query on that page.

Let’s say you have some “Latest news” section in the footer and they’re retrieved with WP_Query. pre_get_post filter will get run for such WP_Query too and the condition above will be still true.

And menu is another example, because it’s also retrieved using WP_Query...

That’s why it’s important to check if $query->is_main_query() also, if you want to modify only the main query.

So your code should look something like this:

else if ( $query->is_main_query() && is_post_type_archive( 'people' ) ) {
    $query->set( 'orderby', 'meta_value' );
// Bug: Line below causes the menu not to show.
    $query->set( 'meta_key', 'display_order' );
    $query->set( 'order', 'ASC' );
}

PS. Of course there is possibility that the same should be applied for other parts of that if statement, so the structure of that if may get changed...