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How to check if there is a sample and already explained solution to my problem?

Check the post in the following category: http://www.gdstarrating.com/category/tutorials/solving-problems/.

How to change visibility of plugin menus to different user levels?

This is controlled by the constants defined in the config files. Detailed info on setting them is here: http://www.gdstarrating.com/2009/08/12/using-config-files/.

How to insert rating blocks or results directly into the theme files?

All plugins functions for inserting wherever you want can be found in the info folder included with the plugin, or at this url: http://info.dev4press.com/gd-star-rating/.

Both stars and thumbs rating block are showing on pages.

You need to disable auto insertion of the rating type you don't want to use. Both are controlled by the options on the Settings panel. For post/page stars use Posts & Pages tab and 5 auto insert checkboxes, for comments use Comments tab and 3 auto insert checkboxes. To control thumb ratings auto insertion, use Thumbs Up/Down tab, and you save auto insert options for posts and pages, and at the bottom for comments. Disable what you don't want to use.

How to change the elements displayed by the plugin in widget, rating blocks and other rendering elements?

All rendering is controlled by the T2 templates system. To change the rendering output you need to make your own templates and change what they display.

Plugin is not showing rating stars or rating widgets after update, or all stars and thumbs have disappeared, and there is nothing in stars/thumbs selection lists.

Check all plugin settings and plugins widgets settings after update and save them. If graphics is gone, try rebuilding stars and thumbs sets: go to plugin Tools -> tab Graphics -> Rescan.

After update I can vote for some posts (stars and/or thumbs).

Most likely, you have already voted for these posts. Plugin uses database log and cookies to prevent duplicate votes (can be disabled). Update CAN'T break the plugin (well, this is true in 99% of the cases), because tables layout and queries are not changed for a long time. You can't upgrade to latest versions from old releases pre 1.3.0 version.

I have added one of the plugins widgets, and it's not showing anything.

Check the widget settings. Most likely problem is with default widget setting to show only posts with 5 votes or more. If you have just set the plugin most likely you still don't have enough votes.

Instead of ratings, in posts on front and category pages plugin shows something like this: VN:F [1.6.7_924] Rating 0/10 (0 Votes).

This is not a bug, but a well-known excerpt problem More details on that and the solutions are in this post: http://www.gdstarrating.com/2009/02/13/the-excerpt-problems/.

Can I use this plugin in combination with cache plugins like WP Super Cache?

Yes. Plugin supports all cache plugins and can load ratings using ajax to keep them current and to avoid ratings to be cached. To enable this feature, you need to activate it on the plugins Settings panel, tab Features, and option Cache Support. You can use this option even if you don't use cache plugins. Instead of showing ratings with the page, plugin will render loading message that will be replaced with rating block once the page is fully loaded.

After upgrade plugin is not rendering stars, and only a loading message appears.

This is caused by the cache plugins support enabled that causes rating block to be loaded after the page is ready. To disable this feature, you need to deactivate it on the plugins Settings panel, tab Features, option Cache Support.

Plugin is not working in some browsers.

Plugin is tested in Opera 9, Opera 9.5, Opera 10, Safari 3, Safari 4, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, MS Internet Explorer 6, MS Internet Explorer 7, MS Internet Explorer 8. However, still there is a possibility that plugin fails to work in some browsers because other plugins or theme can contain JavaScript code that can interfere with GD Star Rating. In that case, you need to fix code causing the problems. I will not test how badly written plugins can cause problems.

After plugin is activated, I get an empty page or 500 Internal Server error.

In rare cases problem is with the plugin, and it is caused by old PHP version (older than 4.4.0). If this is the problem, you cannot use plugin until you update the PHP. But, in most cases problem is caused by some incompatibiliy with theme or other plugin. If that is the case, than you need to find the error behind the problem.

Plugin CSS and JavaScript files used for rating are not loaded, and for them server returns internal error.

This is the problem in case when PHP on the server can't execute these files. Both main JS and CSS are not static files, but dynamic PHP files. The best way to avoid this is to set files and folders permissions properly. All folders should be set to 0755 and all files to 0644. If this doesn't help, contact hosting admin to check what's preventing PHP from accessing this files.

Stars and/or thumbs are not showing in the rating blocks.

There could be two causes for this: * Plugins CSS and JavaScript files are not loaded: Check the previous FAQ answer. * There are no stars or thumbs set selected for the plugin to use. To check this, go to Graphics panel and you will see if there are any sets there, and if any of them is selected. If there are no sets displayed, you need to rescan for them: panel Tools, tab Graphics, and button Rescan. Once the sets are back, you need to select on the Graphics panel sets and sizes you want to use in the active rating blocks: http://www.gdstarrating.com/2009/05/20/settings-explained-part-5/.

Rating is not working in Firefox, but is working in other browsers.

There are many extensions for Firefox that modify the page, and are known to cause many JavaScript problems. Plugin works with all major browsers, and all JavaScript is developed using Firefox and Firebug. But I am not using (nor will test) Firefox with extensions (I use only Firebug).

I have trouble saving plugin settings?

This happens only with PHP4. That's why minimal plugin requirements is now PHP5. Upgrade your servers, PHP4 is no longer supported, it's outdated and full of security holes.

I tried everything (I really tried), and many things are still not working.

I can't guarantee that plugin will work on every WordPress setup. In 99.9% of the cases there are no problems, but some plugin, theme and server combinations can cause problems that can't be anticipated. But this is very rare, and in most cases that can be corrected by tracking down the problem. And usually only some plugins features will fail. Do not simply give up, find the problem, find the PHP error that can cause problem that will most likely point to some other plugin causing problems.