Parent page missing in page attributes

As an option, I would first try to manually adjust the Order from either the Edit or Quick Edit view. Make Home = 0, then increase the number which will place them in order downward.

Next, I would change the status of the published page (possible parent and child page) to a draft and save. So you have a page with Order = 1 (or anything other than 0) and a status of draft.

Do this for both the parent and the child page and force a refresh in your browser (ctrl+shift+r) then try and edit the page and see if the dropdown is under the page attributes.

I have tested these on new installs and it works along with previous workarounds. This doesn’t mean every server setup or database setup is the same.

Finally, there is the tech/dev application which has worked every time. It’s not hard, all you need to do is FTP into your directory or use File Manager in cPanel or whatever management system you have and make the following update to your CORE WordPress Code.

(IMPORTANT: Remember to make a backup of the file before saving or you may have a mess on your hands)

1. Go to Line 290 (or close to 290, depends on your version) in /wp-includes/rest-api/endpoints/class-wp-rest-posts-controller.php.
2. Look for: $posts_query = new WP_Query();
   $query_result = $posts_query->query( $query_args );
3. Replace with: $posts_query = new WP_Query();
   if (isset($query_args[‘orderby’]) && is_string($query_args[‘orderby’]) && $query_args[‘orderby’] == ‘menu_order’) {
   $query_args[‘orderby’] = [‘menu_order’ => ‘ASC’, ‘ID’ => ‘ASC’];
   }
   $query_result = $posts_query->query( $query_args );
4. Save File and refresh your pages and test

Screenshot: https://www.screencast.com/t/SqEjkt6yiOGk

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by colter. Reason: Added Dev/Tech solution
• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by colter.

This is terrible.

I’m in the middle of an introductory WordPress course and was frustrated when I came across this issue while in the midst of the course. I tried the workarounds noted in previous post(s), but they either didn’t work or were too technical for this non-techy.

However, when I got to the section of the course on the (Appearance) Customizer and specifically on menu customization, I was able to get parent attributes to start appearing in the page editing section. Essentially, I used the menu customizer to create a hierarchy within the navigational menus on the site. Once I did that and returned to page editing, the parent attributes option appeared. That said…It’s important to note that the hierarchy I created in the navigational menus was not (yet) represented in the parent attributes. I still had to set up the hierarchy I wanted in the parent attributes as well…particularly in order to get the URLs to reflect that hierarchy.

Hi to everyone with this annoying disappearing Page Attributes problem,

I’ll throw in my five cents here.

the best method is the simplest. and that’s what @colter suggested.

I just install the good old Classic Editor and everything is ok.

Since I use Elementor, I don’t need “news” in the Editor.

But for those who need it, I will say that CMS Tree Page View is great. Of course @colter is right that Simple Page Ordering is just as good. A matter of taste 🙂

Summary of the best workarounds:

1) Classic Editor;
2) CMS Tree Page View;
3) Simple Page Ordering.

and forgot about the problem 🙂

colter (@colter) thank you vm! Workaround #1: Publish the Page, then go to Pages and Quick Edit the page and choose the parent.

I don’t understand why this is not fixed yet. There’s a working patch in this thread.. it’s 3 lines of code.. why can’t this patch be merged into wordpress already?? Its been available since the discovery of this bug…

I read the problem ticket for this issue. The ticket comments indicates the problem only occurs for sites with over 100 pages. I only have 30. Plus, the problem seemed to be worsening. Not only were all page parent options missing from both Quick Edit and Page Attributes, I now could not add any pages to a menu. All pages were missing in the menu editor. However, all of these problems went away for any pages where I changed the status to “Public”. From Quick Edit, this means unticking the “Private” checkbox.

Try changing your pages and the desired parents to “Public”. See if this fixes it for you.

Although this works around the problem, it still seems to be a problem. “Private” should not mean “hide during page edits”.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by David Burkhart.