yundabei

Hi Amit @paulamit,

Thanks for checking and for the recording.

I did some deeper debugging and found more precise details. The copied post does still have valid Elementor data in the database immediately after duplication. For example, _elementor_data, _elementor_edit_mode, _elementor_template_type, and _wp_page_template are all present and correct in wp_postmeta.

The issue happens on the first native/block editor load after duplication. In the editor console, this returns empty Elementor meta:

wp.data.select('core/editor').getCurrentPost().meta

Result:

{ _acf_changed: false, _elementor_edit_mode: '', _elementor_template_type: '', _elementor_data: '', _elementor_page_settings: null }

If I only change the title and publish, the REST request does not submit meta, so the Elementor layout remains fine.

But if I change an ACF field before publishing, ACF sets _acf_changed = 1, and the block editor sends a REST request to:

POST /wp-json/wp/v2/product/{id}

with this payload:

"meta": { "_acf_changed": 1, "_elementor_edit_mode": "", "_elementor_template_type": "", "_elementor_data": "", "_elementor_page_settings": null }

WordPress accepts this and overwrites the existing non-empty _elementor_data in the database with an empty string. After that, Elementor can only reopen the rendered post_content, so the whole design collapses into one Text Editor widget.

A few extra findings:

• The ACF field type I tested is plain text.
• I am using the block editor, not the classic editor.
• Redis/object cache was purged, and the issue still occurred.
• Refreshing the native editor once before changing ACF data often makes the Elementor meta load correctly.
• A temporary protection filter that blocks empty REST overwrites of existing _elementor_data prevents the layout from breaking.
• I also noticed EA Duplicator was copying transient WordPress editor meta such as _edit_last, _edit_lock, _wp_old_slug, and _wp_desired_post_slug. Excluding those is probably a good cleanup, but it does not fully solve the issue because WordPress can regenerate _edit_lock when the editor opens.

So the core issue seems to be:

After EA duplication, the database has valid Elementor meta, but on the first block editor load the editor/REST state can initialize Elementor meta as empty defaults. If ACF is changed during that state, Gutenberg submits the empty Elementor meta and overwrites the valid Elementor layout data.

Could you please check whether EA Duplicator can avoid leaving the copied draft in a state where the first block editor load receives empty Elementor REST meta? Also, it may be worth excluding these transient meta keys during duplication:

_edit_last _edit_lock _wp_old_slug _wp_desired_post_slug

I hope this helps narrow it down.