Links widget not working, gets error message

[Richard L]

Hi Folks ~

Was trying to add the Links widget to my Primary Sidebar. I only have four links so it should be simple, and had it on my old theme (which I’m replacing with Weaver Extreme). For some reason it’s not functioning right. There are two stages to this.

First, I was adding it like I have in the past under the Widgets page, and I only want the Link Image and Link Name in the sidebar. So I would uncheck the options for Show Link Description and Show Link Rating, and it would let me update. But when I’d check the page through Customize, the links would show the Description and Rating after the text of the Link itself. I’d go back to the Widgets page and those options would be rechecked.

After trying a few times the error evolved. Now when I add it to the sidebar, it won’t let me update and displays the error message: “The “links” block was affected by errors and may not function properly. Check the developer tools for more details.”

Does anyone know why this is happening and how I can fix it? This is a business site and I really want those links there.

One other clue might be that there’s a Links widget listed under Legacy widget, which I assume means it was imported with the data from the previous site. (Though I don’t know how that all works, so I could be wrong.)

One final odd detail, in case it helps. I originally put a Search widget in the sidebar just above the Links widget. Now the Search widget is no longer visible in the Sidebar (when I go to try to add the Links widget again), but it does still appear in the Sidebar when I view the site on Customize. Seems odd to me at least.

Finally, I did clear my browser cache in case that was part of this, but it didn’t seem to help.

Thanks VERY much for your time. I hope my description is clear.

Richard

[scrambler]

This reply has been accepted as the best answer.

Yep, it does the same to me.

I am not sure (may be @weaver can confirm), but I believe this is a WordPress Widget, so you may want to search on the wordpress.org forum to see if this is a known bug with the widget….

[User]

@richard-l

Try loading and using the WP “Classic Widgets” plugin.

“Enables the classic widgets settings screens in Appearance – Widgets and the Customizer. Disables the block editor from managing widgets.

Classic Widgets is an official plugin maintained by the WordPress team that restores the previous (“classic”) WordPress widgets settings screens. It will be supported and maintained to 2024, or as long as is necessary.

Once activated and when using a classic (non-block) theme, this plugin restores the previous widgets settings screens and disables the block editor from managing widgets. There is no other configuration, the classic widgets settings screens are enabled or disabled by either enabling or disabling this plugin.”

If it does not solve the issue, you can always remove it…. but this sounds like it may be a legacy issue here.

Regards!

 

[Richard L]

Thank you so much. That helped!

Have a great day,

Richard

[Weaver]

It  is not overly publicized, but both the Classic Editor and Classic Widgets plugins are pretty essential to use WordPress in the “classic” mode.

[Author]

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