Am unable to reset a query properly

Question

I have a custom taxonomy archive page called 'taxonomy-teacher.php' where I display teacher meta (title & description) and then I loop through all the teacher's talks (audio files), which have custom post type 'audiotalk'. 'teacher' is a non-heirarchical taxonomy for 'audiotalk'. Everything works great.

'audiotalk's also have a heirachical custom taxonomy called 'audiotalk-categories' so people can seach for them elsewhere on the site. But on this page I have no need for those categories.

Here's the problem: I am including a file at the bottom of this template that displays "related books". In that include it has its own loop that first queries the taxonomy to determine what to show. I want it to show books related to that 'teacher' taxonomy, but it's actually showing books related to the 'audiotalk-categories'. So I've been trying to reset that audiotalk loop with every method I can find online and nothing is working.

Here's my code (it has one of my attempts):

<div class="main-col">
    <div class="teacher-header clearfix">
        <h1>Teacher : <?php single_cat_title(); ?></h1>
        <?php echo tag_description(); ?>
    </div>

    <h3><?php single_cat_title(); ?>'s Bodhi Talks:</h3>
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); if( get_field('in_sub') == 'yes' ) : ?>
    <div class="list-item">
        <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" class="list-link"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
        <div class="desc">
    <?php if( get_field('talk_description') ) : ?>
            <p><?php the_field('talk_description'); ?></p>
        </div>
        <div class="meta">
    <?php endif; ?>
            <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" class="listen-link">Listen Now &raquo;</a>
        </div>
    </div>
<?php endif; endwhile; endif; wp_reset_query(); ?>

<?php get_template_part('template-related-products'); ?>

</div>

I also tried wp_reset_postdata() and I tried putting both wp_reset_postdata() and wp_reset_query() in different places in the ifs and whiles.

Here is the code for template-related-products.php. It works perfectly everywhere else it is included, but I realize the fault could be here as well:

<?php // Suggested Books
    if ( is_post_type_archive( 'teacher' ) ) :
        $top_taxonomy = 'teacher';
    else :
        $top_taxonomy = 'audiotalk-category';
    endif;

    $terms_list = wp_get_post_terms( $post->ID, $top_taxonomy, array( 'fields' => 'all' ) );

    foreach ($terms_list as $term) :
        $term_id = $term->term_id;
        $taxonomy = $term->taxonomy;
        $tax_query[] = array (
            'taxonomy' => $taxonomy,
            'field' => 'term_id',
            'terms' => $term_id,
        );
    endforeach;

    $tax_query['relation'] = 'OR';

    if ( is_post_type_archive( 'teacher' ) ) :
        $args = array(
            'post_type' => 'related_product',
            'posts_per_page' => 3,
            'orderby' => 'rand',
            'meta_query' => array(
                array(
                    'key' => 'related_product_type',
                    'compare' => '==',
                    'value' => 'book'
                ),
                array(
                    'key' => 'associated_audio_talk_teacher',
                    'compare' => 'LIKE',
                    'value' => $term_id
                )
            )
        );
    else :
        $args = array (
            'post_type' => 'related_product',
            'posts_per_page' => 3,
            'orderby' => 'rand',
            'order' => 'ASC',
            'meta_query' => array (
                array ( 
                    'key' => 'related_product_type',
                    'compare' => '=',
                    'value' => 'book'
                )
            ),
            'tax_query' => $tax_query,
        );
    endif;

    $rp_query = new WP_Query( $args );
?>
<?php if( $rp_query->have_posts() ): ?>
    <h3>Suggested Reading</h3>
    <ul class="related-products">
<?php while( $rp_query->have_posts() ) : $rp_query->the_post(); ?>
        <li class="book-item">
            <div class="prod-img">
                <a href="<?php echo get_field('related_product_store_link'); ?>"><img src="<?php echo get_field('related_product_image'); ?>" alt="<?php echo get_field('related_product_title'); ?>"></a>
            </div>
            <div class="item-deets">
                <h3><a href="<?php echo get_field('related_product_store_link'); ?>"><?php echo get_field('related_product_title'); ?></a></h3>
                <span class="author"><?php echo get_field('related_book_author'); ?></span>
            </div>
        </li>
<?php endwhile; ?>
    </ul>
<?php endif; wp_reset_query(); ?>

If I echo $top_taxonomy it always says 'audiotalk-category' and if I print_r($terms_list) it shows the taxonomy for that audio talk, not the original taxonomy for the template. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

wp_reset_query is for cleaning up after a query_posts call, you don't need to call it after a standard posts loop, only if you use query_posts. Since you should never use query_posts to fetch posts from the database, you should never use this function.

But How Do I Cleanup After The Main Loop?

You don't, this is an example of a full main post loop:

if ( have_posts() ) {
    while ( have_posts() ) {
        the_post();
        // display content
    }
} else {
    // none found
}

What About WP_Query or get_posts?

There's a similar and more useful function named wp_reset_postdata. This function cleans up after these functions:

• WP_Query::the_post
• setup_postdata

So an example of a WP_Query post loop should look like:

$q = new WP_Query( [ ... ] );
if ( $q->have_posts() ) {
    while ( $q->have_posts() ) {
        $q->the_post();
        // display content
    }
    wp_reset_postdata();
} else {
    // none found
}

Notice that I called wp_reset_postdata after the while loop, but inside the if statement, not after it. Only reset postdata if there's something to clean up

And If I Need To Override The Loop?

Use the pre_get_posts filter to modify the main loop, don't create a new replacement query.

What About get_posts?

If you never set the postdata, then you never have to reset it.