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Lightbox Plus ColorBox doesn't work

Well, yes, it does. It's used by thousands of websites and if it doesn't work for you that because there is some problem with how it interacts with your site.

The most common cause for it not working is a jQuery conflict cause by a theme or a plugin that either does not properly instantiate jQuery or instantiate s avery old version of jQuery.

Here are things to try in order to see what the problem is.

1. Check jQuery version and make sure you are using the lastest included in WordPress
   • If it's an older version or not enqueued correctly it will cause problems
   • It may be in your theme or another plugin
2. You may be lacking wp_footer() function in your footer.php of your WordPress theme.
   • Look at the default theme to see how it is implemented and add it into your theme.
3. Try deactivating all plugins one at a time besides lightbox plus and see if if it starts working
   • If it does work after deactivating on then there's a plugin conflict
4. If deactivating plugins doesn't work then there might be a conflict with your theme
   • To isolate you can try an different theme and see if it works
5. Try changing to a different lightbox style/theme and see if that makes a difference
   • There may be a style conflict of some sort
6. Try deleting the plugin and reinstalling - it may have not completely updated correctly.
   • You'll have to reset your settings so you might want to write them down.

It works for some images and not others, why not?

The problem may be with your WordPress theme, mangling image display properties. Try using another theme, that doesn't interfere with posted images.

It also seems that some more recent version of WordPress (or perhaps the plugin is causing this in some way I am not aware of) do not automatically add the link to the full size image. You must also make sure that when you are adding an image from the WordPress media dialog control you must make sure there is a link to the image in the Link URL field. The easiest way to get the correct link is to click on the link to image button beneath the field. Visual depiction of what is required when adding images in order for lightbox to function correctly.

Lightbox Plus ColorBox doesn't work properly in browser X, Y, or Z (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, Explorer 6, 7, etc.)?

Yes it probably does, the problems may be the same as above or there may be a conflict with another plugin or a style conflict. It has been tested in Chrome, IE 7+, Firefox 2+, Chrome, Safari 3+, Opera 8+ since development began.

Does Lightbox Plus ColorBox work with PHP 4? If not, why not?

No it doesn't. PHP 4 reached end of life on August 8th 2008 (almost years ago.) WordPress no longer supports PHP 4 and all plugin developers are encourage to follow. The best solution at this time is to ask your host provider to upgrade to PHP 5.

You will know that Lightbox Plus ColorBox is not working because of PHP if you receive the following error:

Plugin couldn't be activated because of fatal error

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_OBJECT_OPERATOR in /path/to/plugin/classes/filters.class.php on line 81

Can I use this plugin and Lightview Plus, Lightbox 2 (either one), jQuery Colorbox, WP lightbox JS Plugin, Fancybox etc at the same time?

Maybe, but probably not as they will most likely interfere with each other as they usually modify the image URLs. Other image overlay plugins may possibly be compatible.

Can I add my own styles and images for the overlay?

Yes, you can easily create additional styles by checking the use custom styles checkbox. It will copy the existing styles to wp-content/lbp-css and you can modify any of the existing styles. You can all adding a new folder to that directory and using the existing styles as examples create your completely custom styles.

How does Lightbox Plus ColorBox differ from other Lightbox plugins for WordPress?

Performance wise the ColorBox jQuery plugin is smaller and generally faster and has more options than most lightbox JavaScript plugins. The regular expressions that handle the text are more robust handling a wider variety of characters and in addition it will also grab the image title from the image to use for the overlay image caption.

Does Lightbox Plus ColorBox work with WordPress' built in gallery

Yes it does. There are few simple requirements however. You must set Link thumbnails to: Image File or use [gallery link="file" for the gallery options. You must check Use For WP Gallery box under Other Lightbox Plus ColorBox Settings

When resetting/re-initializing LBP the setting do not appear correctly when the page reloads, what gives?

This problem is only apparent in Chrome and Opera. It seems to works fine in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. There are some browser related issues and I am investigating the problem at this time. For Chrome the settings are being saved but not displayed immediately, click on the Lightbox Plus ColorBox link under appearance and you will see the current settings. Opera for whatever reason is completely failing to save re-initialization settings, you must manually set and save them or use another browser. And, no, it doesn't make sense since it's server side activity.

Additional FAQs from Colorbox

For addtional information please see ColorBox FAQ for information about the jQuery plugin used by Lightbox Plus ColorBox.

Other Problems

If your problem isn't covered in this FAQ, your best bet would be to post your question to the WordPress support forums.

Please do not contact Jack Moore the author of ColorBox for issues with Lightbox Plus ColorBox.

If you have read and tried the above and you are still having problems, and require more in-depth support or if you need extra help you may place a service request using the form on the Plugin Support Request page. Due to the volume of questions, I cannot may not be able to offer individual support though in an effort to resolve the issue I may contact you. The issue may be resolved by a new release of Lightbox Plus ColorBox but it does help me get a better understanding of the issue.

Known Problems

• Does not work correctly with W3 Total Cache if you are using automatic minify settings. You can manually set up minify to work correctly bypassing Lightbox Plus ColorBox (jquery-colorbox.min.js)
• No support for iPad (if someone wants to donate an iPad to me I will guarantee support)
  • It generally seems to work though I just don't support it as I don't have an iPad.
• In some instances performance may be slow in older versions IE - this may be due to plugin conflicts or slow JavaScript performance in IE.
• Lightboxed video does not seem to work in IE on locally installed sites, for example viewing in IE 7.0 while running XAMPP, this seems to be a Windows only issue.

Plugin Conflicts

• Jetpack Carousel - When carousel is activate it take precedence over Lightbox Plus ColorBox for image use as of LBP 2.x
• Flickr Mini Gallery - Verified. Download hot fix for Flickr Mini Gallery (includes instructions) as of LBP 1.6.3
• Tabbed Widgets - Verified as of LBP 1.6.3
• DMSGuestbook - Un-verified as of LBP 1.6.3
• Gengo - Un-verified as of LBP 1.6.3

Note: Some of these conflicts were with very old versions of Lightbox Plus ColorBox and may be mitigated