{"id":18,"date":"2026-04-22T17:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T17:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/docs.fasterthemes.com\/legal-wordpress-theme\/2026\/04\/22\/troubleshooting\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T17:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T17:49:09","slug":"troubleshooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/docs.fasterthemes.com\/legal-wordpress-theme\/2026\/04\/22\/troubleshooting\/","title":{"rendered":"Troubleshooting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Real issues from real users. If your problem isn&#8217;t here, email <a href=\"mailto:support@fasterthemes.com\">support@fasterthemes.com<\/a> with as much detail as you can \u2014 version numbers, error messages, screenshots, and steps to reproduce.<\/p>\n<h2>Theme &amp; layout issues<\/h2>\n<h3>The Firm Home page shows a blog instead of the firm template<\/h3>\n<p>The page exists but isn&#8217;t using the Firm template, or the static front page setting wasn&#8217;t applied. Two checks:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Is the page template set?<\/strong> Edit the page \u2192 look in the right sidebar for the Template dropdown \u2192 confirm it&#8217;s set to <em>Firm Home<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Is it set as the static front page?<\/strong> Settings \u2192 Reading \u2192 &#8220;Your homepage displays&#8221; should be <em>A static page<\/em>, with the Firm Home page selected.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>The site shows the WordPress fallback theme (Twenty Twenty-Four etc.)<\/h3>\n<p>Legal isn&#8217;t activated, or the upload failed. Go to <strong>Appearance \u2192 Themes<\/strong>. If Legal isn&#8217;t in the list, re-upload the zip. If Legal is in the list but inactive, click <strong>Activate<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>If Legal appears with a &#8220;Broken theme&#8221; warning, the upload was incomplete. Re-download from fasterthemes.com and upload again.<\/p>\n<h3>Practice tiles, counsel cards, or ledger are missing<\/h3>\n<p>Each section has a &#8220;Show&#8221; toggle in the Customizer, defaulting to on. Verify:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Customizer \u2192 Practice \u2192 Show Practice<\/strong> is checked<\/li>\n<li><strong>Customizer \u2192 Counsel \u2192 Show Counsel<\/strong> is checked<\/li>\n<li><strong>Customizer \u2192 Ledger \u2192 Show Ledger<\/strong> is checked<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For the Ledger, the section also requires recent published blog posts to populate. If your site has no posts yet, the Ledger will show but be empty.<\/p>\n<h3>The hero pull-quote area is missing on mobile<\/h3>\n<p>Intentional. Below 768px the hero collapses to a single column; the pull-quote and stats move below the main heading rather than alongside. Confirm by resizing your desktop browser.<\/p>\n<h2>Fonts &amp; CSS issues<\/h2>\n<h3>Fonts look wrong \/ system serif instead of Fraunces<\/h3>\n<p>Google Fonts are blocked by the user&#8217;s browser, an ad-blocker, or a server-side request filter. Test in an incognito window with extensions disabled.<\/p>\n<p>If the issue is consistent across browsers, your hosting may be blocking outbound requests to <code>fonts.googleapis.com<\/code>. Some privacy-focused hosts do this. Switch to self-hosted fonts via a plugin like <em>OMGF<\/em> if you can&#8217;t unblock the request.<\/p>\n<h3>Custom CSS isn&#8217;t taking effect<\/h3>\n<p>Three things to check:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Did you save?<\/strong> The Customizer&#8217;s &#8220;Additional CSS&#8221; panel needs an explicit Publish to apply changes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Are you targeting the right selector?<\/strong> Use browser DevTools (right-click \u2192 Inspect) to confirm the CSS rule appears in the cascade and isn&#8217;t being overridden by a more-specific rule.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cache?<\/strong> If you have a caching plugin or CDN, purge the cache. Custom CSS lives in <code>wp_options<\/code>, not in a CSS file, so plugins that minify CSS sometimes miss it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>Layout breaks at certain screen widths<\/h3>\n<p>Most often caused by a long unbroken string in a customizer field \u2014 a URL, an email address, or a long word \u2014 overflowing its container. The fix is to add <code>word-break: break-word<\/code> via Custom CSS:<\/p>\n<pre><code>.lg-hero-sub, .lg-counsel-card p, .lg-practice-tile p {\n    word-break: break-word;\n}<\/code><\/pre>\n<h2>License &amp; updates issues<\/h2>\n<h3>License activation says &#8220;Invalid response from license server&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>The plugin can&#8217;t reach <code>fasterthemes.com<\/code>. Possible causes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Outbound HTTPS blocked<\/strong> \u2014 ask your host to whitelist fasterthemes.com<\/li>\n<li><strong>SSL certificate issue<\/strong> \u2014 older PHP installations sometimes have outdated CA bundles. Upgrade to PHP 8.x<\/li>\n<li><strong>Firewall plugin (e.g., Wordfence) blocking the request<\/strong> \u2014 temporarily disable, retry activation, re-enable<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>License is active but Pro features aren&#8217;t applying<\/h3>\n<p>Cache. Either WordPress&#8217;s transient cache or a caching plugin is serving an older &#8220;license inactive&#8221; state. Steps:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Go to <strong>Appearance \u2192 Legal Pro License<\/strong>. If status shows &#8220;Active&#8221;, proceed.<\/li>\n<li>Purge any caching plugin&#8217;s cache.<\/li>\n<li>Hard-refresh your browser (Cmd-Shift-R \/ Ctrl-F5).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If features still don&#8217;t appear, deactivate Legal Pro then reactivate. The plugin re-runs its activation hooks, which clears any cached state.<\/p>\n<h3>Plugin updates aren&#8217;t appearing under WordPress&#8217;s update notices<\/h3>\n<p>Update checks run twice daily by default. To force a check, visit <strong>Dashboard \u2192 Updates<\/strong> and click <strong>Check Again<\/strong>. Then go to <strong>Plugins<\/strong> \u2014 Legal Pro should now show an update notice if one is available.<\/p>\n<p>If no notice appears even after forcing a check, your license has likely deactivated. See <a href=\"\/license\/\">License &amp; Updates<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Demo importer issues<\/h2>\n<h3>Demo import button is missing<\/h3>\n<p>The button only appears when Pro license is active. See <em>License is active but Pro features aren&#8217;t applying<\/em> above.<\/p>\n<h3>Demo import succeeds but featured images are missing<\/h3>\n<p>The importer downloads images from <em>picsum.photos<\/em>. If your server can&#8217;t reach external HTTPS, the download silently fails \u2014 posts are created but without thumbnails.<\/p>\n<p>Confirm by visiting <code>https:\/\/picsum.photos\/seed\/test\/1600\/900<\/code> from your browser. If it loads, the issue is server-side outbound connectivity. Ask your host to verify external HTTPS works.<\/p>\n<p>You can manually add featured images to the demo posts via Posts \u2192 All Posts \u2192 edit \u2192 Set Featured Image, after the import.<\/p>\n<h3>Demo import fails with &#8220;An error occurred&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>Usually a memory or execution-time limit. The importer downloads 5 images and creates ~10 posts\/pages \u2014 modest, but on small shared hosts the cumulative work can hit limits. Increase PHP memory to 256MB and max_execution_time to 60s. Ask your host how \u2014 it&#8217;s usually a one-line config change.<\/p>\n<h2>Performance issues<\/h2>\n<h3>Site feels slow<\/h3>\n<p>Legal itself is lean (~25KB CSS, ~5KB JS). Slowness is almost always caused by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Other plugins<\/strong> \u2014 try deactivating non-essential plugins to identify the culprit. Page builders, social-feed plugins, and analytics plugins are common offenders.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hosting<\/strong> \u2014 shared hosts under load can be much slower than the same site on a $5 VPS. If your site averages above 1.5s TTFB consistently, the host is the bottleneck.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Image-heavy hero<\/strong> \u2014 if you&#8217;ve replaced the default placeholder hero with a 4MB unoptimized JPEG, that&#8217;s the issue. Compress to under 200KB and serve as WebP.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is high<\/h3>\n<p>Usually caused by web fonts loading after the page renders. Add <code>display=swap<\/code> to your font URL (Legal does this by default, so this only affects custom font setups).<\/p>\n<p>If CLS is very high (>0.25), check your hero image for a missing <code>width<\/code> and <code>height<\/code> attribute. Pre-set dimensions prevent reflow when images load.<\/p>\n<h2>Compatibility issues<\/h2>\n<h3>Conflict with another plugin<\/h3>\n<p>Standard troubleshooting:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Deactivate all other plugins except Legal Pro.<\/li>\n<li>Test if the issue is gone.<\/li>\n<li>If yes, reactivate plugins one at a time, retesting between each, until the conflict surfaces.<\/li>\n<li>Email support with the name of the conflicting plugin and we&#8217;ll either fix Legal Pro or guide you on what to do.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>Theme update broke something<\/h3>\n<p>Try this in order:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Clear all caches (browser, plugin caches, server cache, CDN).<\/li>\n<li>Switch to a default theme (Twenty Twenty-Four), then back to Legal. This clears stale customizer state.<\/li>\n<li>Deactivate Legal Pro, then reactivate.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If still broken, email support with: theme version, Pro version, list of active plugins, and the specific symptom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Solutions for the issues we see most often \u2014 broken layouts, missing fonts, license activation failures, demo importer problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[37,38,36],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reference","tag-errors","tag-fixes","tag-troubleshooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/docs.fasterthemes.com\/legal-wordpress-theme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/docs.fasterthemes.com\/legal-wordpress-theme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/docs.fasterthemes.com\/legal-wordpress-theme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/docs.fasterthemes.com\/legal-wordpress-theme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/docs.fasterthemes.com\/legal-wordpress-theme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/docs.fasterthemes.com\/legal-wordpress-theme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/docs.fasterthemes.com\/legal-wordpress-theme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/docs.fasterthemes.com\/legal-wordpress-theme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/docs.fasterthemes.com\/legal-wordpress-theme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}