Comments are not showing after post content

AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around an issue where Discourse comments are not appearing after post content on a WordPress site using the WP Discourse plugin. Users report that comments are not visible, despite the plugin being properly configured and comments appearing in the database. The problem is traced to the theme’s handling of comments, particularly the absence of a proper comments_template() call in the content.php file. One user resolves the issue by fixing an error in their child theme’s code. Another user, using the Twenty Seventeen theme, seeks help after confirming all settings are correct, including enabling Discourse comments and ensuring the plugin is connected to Discourse. A moderator suggests checking cache settings and enabling AJAX loading of comments, but the issue persists. The thread also includes troubleshooting steps like using the Health Check plugin and reviewing logs, with users needing to reach trust level 1 to send messages. Ultimately, the issue is resolved for some users, while others continue to experience problems, indicating potential theme or plugin conflicts.

Hi, we use wp discourse plugin on our site. The problem is that i can’t find comment section after post content.
Seems like plugin options are fine, but we still have an issue
Can you help us please?
Forum page:
https://forum.sportenter.co.il/t/topic/80478/2
Related article:

Make sure the ‘Use Discourse Comments’ option is checked. If you have already done that, the problem might be to do with the way your theme loads comments. For Discourse comments to show up, your theme needs to be loading the WordPress comments template.

What is the name of your theme? If your theme is in the WordPress repo, I can try it out.

You could try using this plugin to debug the problem: Health Check & Troubleshooting – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org English (Canada). It will let you disable all plugins on your site and load WordPress with the default 2016 theme. You can then enable the WP Discourse plugin to see if it will display comments. There is some documentation for the plugin here: Troubleshooting using the Health Check – Make WordPress Support. You should save a backup of your database before enabling it.

thank you for your response, i’m another admin of this site. Unfortunately your instructions didn’t help us to fix this issue(. We are using Flex Mag theme (or it’s child theme, to be specific) (https://themeforest.net/item/flex-mag-responsive-wordpress-news-theme/12772303) Our theme is loading WordPress comments template and we can see comments which are created by standard wordpress instruments: http://joxi.ru/EA4WBJ9sDVEvY2. We used Health Check, as you said but it’s didn’t help us find out what may cause this issue. We still see no comments with default 2016 theme and discourse (as the only active plugin).

I think the problem is that the plugin doesn’t see comments from the forum (http://joxi.ru/krDJBP8t0DjGp2 : as you see it’s saying “START THE DISCUSSION” but there are already comments under that post: Limey - Simple, free, fully responsive sites) . But despite all of this, seems like plugin is writing data about comments to our wordpress database in discourse meta. Our settings:http://joxi.ru/8236BNbi6R04Qm http://joxi.ru/L21QE7vS6KMOQ2. Can you tell us please what are we doing wrong?

Thanks for testing it with the Health Check plugin.

There are some other comment settings that could cause a problem. Here are the default settings. Try using them to see if that fixes it.

If you have enabled the Sync Comment Data webhook, try disabling it. It will take up to 10 minutes for comments to show up when the webhook is not being used.

seems like it didn’t help(

Thanks for checking. I think I see the problem. I will try something and get back to you about it.

Edit: this is what I think is happening:

Your posts are all being displayed on the WordPress posts page. By default, WordPress does not show any comments on this page. When you disabled all plugins and tried WP Discourse with the 2016 theme, no comments would have been displayed on your posts page because that is the default WordPress behaviour.

With the WordPress twentysixteen or twentyseventeen theme, to get comments to display on the posts page you need to add a line similar to this to the content.php file. This goes below the call to the_content():

global $withcomments;
$withcomments = 1;
comments_template();

When I do that, I am able to get WP Discourse comments to display on the posts page.

Are there any single post pages on your website that you could check? It would be good to see if Discourse comments will appear on a single page.

there was already comments_template() function in content.php and i can see standart wordpress comments under the posts (as i said before), tried as single post, still nothing(

Can you see Discourse comments for single posts when you use the twentysixteen theme and disable all plugins except for WP Discourse?

no( Wordpress sees that that there are comments http://joxi.ru/D2PJ9a4tdL5OXr 1 (with twentysixteen and Discourse enabled / with my current theme and all plugins enabled) but refuses to show them on frontend . Really have no idea what may cause this.

we managed to fix this)) There was an error in child-theme code and now it’s working fine) Thank you, Simon for your help and time)

Comment box is not appearing on my blogpost. I am using twenty seventeen theme. Please somebody help me, I have been trying a lot of things since a week now.

Can you check that comments are enabled for the post? Also make sure that the ‘Enable Discourse Comments’ setting is enabled. That setting should look like this:

Let me know if comments are still not being displayed for you.

Hello! I am having the same issue. I have checked the posting and commenting settings and all seem to be checked correctly, but I am still not able to see the Discourse section at the end of the post. All I am seeing is the wordpress comment section. Previously, when my site was in staging, I was able to see the “Continue the conversation on Discourse” with a link. Any help is appreciated!

Hey Tim, could you just confirm a few things for me about your production site. If you could just check them off for me in your response. Thanks :slight_smile:

  • your WP Discourse plugin is connected to your Discourse, i.e. you see “You’re Connected to Discourse” when you load the WP Discourse admin panel;

  • your wordpress posts are being posted to your Discourse, and there are replies to the Discourse topic on the Wordpress post you’re not seeing Discourse comments on;

  • you have “Enable Discourse Comments” set to true and “Display comments for all topics” checked; and

  • your wordpress cache is not preventing you from seeing the comments. To check this, please try toggling the WP Discoursse “Commenting” setting “Clear Cached Comment HTML”.

Thanks for the follow-up! All four checks down the board. Still, nothing is showing.

Ok, if you feel comfortable with it, could you go to the Logs panel in the WP Discourse plugin, download the logs and send them to me via PM? Note that there is no personally identifying information or secrets in the logs.

For more on the logs and what’s in them see

Sure thing. Will send them over. Where should I send them to?

Send me them in a message here on meta.discourse.org.

Click this link to compose a message to me.

It’s not allowing me to send you a message.