@ladeek Hi there! I strongly recommend using the latest version of the plugin as there are bug fixes and updates in the most recent version.
If your stories pass the AMP validation and they also pass the Rich Results test, then everything should be fine from a technical perspective. Your stories should be indexable without issues and nothing should be blocking you from receiving traffic.
If you’re experiencing issues with v1.13.0 we’ll be happy to take a closer look when you’ve updated to it but it is difficult to check for any issues otherwise.
Thread Starter
ladeek
(@ladeek)
Thanks for your prompt reply. I have just updated to the latest version and some of my webstories are blank. Here is a URL
https://besthotelshome.com/web-stories/what-is-denver-known-for/
With Version 1.12.0 the url appears and everything is fine on GSC but with version 1.13.0 it doesn’t appear at all and shows a 404 on GSC. This is one of many URLs facing this issue
Thanks for updating and sharing the URL.
The source code of the page says <!-- html is corrupted -->, which is a message apparently printed by WP Fastest Cache.
Can you try excluding any URLs containing “web-stories” in the “Exclude Pages” settings of that plugin? See https://www.wpfastestcache.com/features/exclude-page/ for how to do that.
After that, let’s check the story URL again.
Thread Starter
ladeek
(@ladeek)
Hello, no it still doesn’t work. I have just deactivated all the plugins and only kept web stories plug in activated. Here is a URL which is still blank.
https://besthotelshome.com/web-stories/what-is-nashville-tennessee-known-for/
If I roll back to 1.12.0 everything is fine but with 1.13.0 the url won’t open or is blank
Thanks for testing!
The page source looks better already, but still missing the actual story content.
All your other stories look alright though, which is strange.
With all other plugins disabled, could you try opening the story in the editor and simply saving it without making any changes?
Could you try temporarily switching to another theme as well and trying to save again?
From what I can see, something on your site is adding tons of <p> tags to the generated story markup, which of will break the stories completely.
You can see this when checking the REST API response for your Nashville story: https://besthotelshome.com/wp-json/web-stories/v1/web-story/9087
The fields I highlighted here shouldn’t be there:
After changing the theme and saving the story again, let us know here and we can check the REST API response again.
Thread Starter
ladeek
(@ladeek)
Sorry for the delayed response. I changed the theme but the blank web stories continued to remain blank. One way around this was to open the editor and press update and the stories were back to normal after that. I will manually check all my stories to see how big the impact was.
Thank you very much for the support!
One way around this was to open the editor and press update and the stories were back to normal after that.
Great to hear that worked. That’s what I meant when I said “try opening the story in the editor and simply saving it without making any changes”
If you re-enable all plugins and pressing Update breaks stories again, that means some plugin or theme caused this issue.
I just encountered a similar issue here https://pancakerecipes.com/web-stories/blueberry-pancakes/ and all web stories on this site. Every web story was just showing as a blank page with no error in the console.
I roll back to 1.12.0 and all of them worked fine.
Reupdated to 1.13.0 and they were all broke.
Following this thread, I just (without changing anything), hit the update button and the individual web story worked. All of the others were still broke. I verified in the validator that it was being seen as a good web story. It was.
Since there were only a few web stories on this site, I just updated each of them.
Currently, this site is on the latest version and all works. The fix that worked for me was to manually update each individual web story.
The same individual actually has two completely separate implementations. The same thing was happening on the other, as well. Updating those fixed it, but I do think there is an issue going on here that was revealed with updating from 1.12.0 to 1.13.0
Hi @benmyhre, if you could open a new support topic with some more details, that would be great.
As mentioned in this topic as well, it’s most likely related to some plugin/theme conflict causing these broken stories. So make sure to include some information about active plugins (i.e. your Site Health information)
@swissspidy in this case (both sites) I just fixed it by updating each, so I don’t think there is a need for me to open a support issue. That’s why I just left this as a note rather than a new issue. I suspect you might see other instances of this, but it does seem like one of those issues that is not immediately noticeable. If I find one with an insurmountable number of stories to update, I will open a new issue.
Perhaps a conflict, but it would seem like a new conflict introduced by the newest version of Web Stories.
Of the two environments I experience it in, they are running completely different custom themes. It might not mean that both don’t have the same conflict, but would seem unlikely. There are a few shared plugins/tools like wp rocket and CF Enterprise. I tried without WP Rocket and that didn’t seem to be the issue. The pancake site has really a small number of plugins.
