Why always one post missing

Question

In my custom query, every time I query for posts from a particular category using WP_Query() and the category has 10 posts for example, I seem to be missing a post. So querying for 10 posts only returns 9, querying for 11 posts only returns 10 and so on. Does anyone know why I am always missing one post in my query results?

This is the code I am using that is not working. Some of my other code tests have returned the same results.

if($carouselOnOff){?>
<div id="carouselContainer">
<h2 id="sponsorsTitle"><?php echo get_cat_name( $carouselCategory ) ?></h2>
<ul id="carousel">
    <?php $showPostsInCategory = new WP_Query(); $showPostsInCategory->query('cat='. $carouselCategory .'&showposts='. $carouselNumber .'');
    if ($showPostsInCategory->have_posts()) : while ($showPostsInCategory->have_posts()) : $showPostsInCategory->the_post();?>
        <li>
            <?php $data = get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'key', true ); ?>
            <a href="<?php  if ($data[ 'custom_link' ]) { echo $data[ 'custom_link' ];} else { the_permalink(); } ?>">
                <?php the_post_thumbnail('sponsor', array('title' => "")); ?>
            </a>
        </li>
    <?php endwhile; endif; ?>
</ul><!--end carousel-->
</div><!--end carouselContainer-->
<?php } ?>

Answer 1

It sounds like you have a filter running on that page that's adding an offset parameter to your WP_Query.

There aren't any really easy ways to search for all filters. The plugin Hikari Hooks is the simplest that I've seen. If you install and activate that plugin and view the problem page, you should be able to view any filters on request or pre_get_posts or other hooks that might be affecting your output. Then its just a matter of tracking down where they're being added and disabling them before your carousel query.

Answer 2

It sounds like a browser caching issue possibly. If you're on a PC try holding down Ctrl+Alt+F5 to do a hard refresh and clear all caches.

Answer 3

I was having this same issue, inside the query I had a number set to 1, which I then changed to zero, and presto! this is my new code:

<?php global $wp_query; $total_pages = $wp_query->max_num_pages; if ( $total_pages > 0 ) { ?>

Answer 4

I was having a similar problem. I'm still not sure exactly what was causing it, but I was able to patch it by forcing a large 'posts_per_page' variable in the query and setting the offset to 0.

$the_query = new WP_Query(array('post_type' => 'items', 'offset' => '0', 'posts_per_page' => '9999'));

Answer 5

It might be status issue. Try with:

'post_status' => 'any'