Cannot save widgets in custom sidebars

Question

I'm working on a child theme of the Toolset Bootstrap Theme. I need to create a custom sidebar, so I registered the new sidebar in my child theme's function.php file:

function wpbootstrap_register_newsidebar() {

/* Register the new sidebar. */
register_sidebar(
    array(
        'id' => 'sidebar-999',
        'name' => __( 'Home sidebar', 'wpbootstrap' ),
        'description' => __( 'This sidebar will display only on the homepage.', 'wpbootstrap' ),
        'before_widget' => '<aside id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
        'after_widget' => '</aside>',
        'before_title' => '<h3 class="widget-title">',
        'after_title' => '</h3>'
    )
);
} add_action( 'widgets_init', 'wpbootstrap_register_newsidebar' );

I can see the new sidebar in the admin screen, drag widgets into it, add a title, reorder them but if I reload the page all of the widget disappear from the sidebar. The parent theme already has 3 built-in widgetized areas, which work just fine: I can add and save widgets in those areas. Also if I switch to a default theme, like Twenty Fourteen, and try to register a custom sidebar using the same code pasted above, I get a fully functional custom sidebar area. So apparently my code is not the problem.

I tried to post the question on the parent theme's vendor support forum, but haven't heard from them yet, so I thought to ask to the wider WP community just in case someone is experiencing a similar problem.

I'm not a WP guru and I don't know much about how custom widgetized area are created and stored inside WP environment, but if someone can point me to the right direction I'd be more than happy to learn some more about it.

Unfortunately I'm working on a local development version of a website, so I cannot provide any testing URL.

Answer 1

the ID of sidebar (in php function) should be LOWERCASE!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 2

This seems to test properly for me.

function register_home_sidebar() {

/* Register the new sidebar. */
register_sidebar(
    array(
        'id' => 'home-sidebar',
        'name' => __('Home Sidebar'),
        'description' => __( 'This sidebar will display only on the homepage.'),
        'before_widget' => '<aside id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
        'after_widget' => '</aside>',
        'before_title' => '<h3 class="widget-title">',
        'after_title' => '</h3>'
          )
     );
} add_action( 'widgets_init', 'register_home_sidebar' );

Maybe you have a function already called by the other name?

Answer 3

Ok, finally the support team answered my question, and if even if there's not a real solution, suggested a workaround. Since the answer is buried deep in the vendor user forum - link here - I'm sharing the solution here, just in case someone has the same problem with this or another theme.

Basically it's a bug in the parent theme (Toolset Bootstrap), that resets the custom sidebars. To override this behaviour I used this snippet of code to register my sidebars, as suggested by support team:

//Override check sidebar widgets filter in child theme
function wpbootstrap_checksidebars_widgets($sidebars_widgets) {
    return $sidebars_widgets;
}
add_filter('sidebars_widgets','wpbootstrap_checksidebars_widgets' );
//Now user can add custom widget areas
function custom_widget_areas_init() {
    register_sidebar( array(
    'name' => 'Front Page Widget Area',
    'id' => 'frontpage-widgets',
    'before_widget' => '<div>',
    'after_widget' => '</div>',
    'before_title' => '<h2 class="rounded">',
    'after_title' => '</h2>',
    ) );
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'custom_widget_areas_init' );

Now the widgets stay in the newly registered sidebars. Thanks anyway to the users who tried to help me.

Answer 4

function wpbootstrap_checksidebars_widgets($sidebars_widgets) {
    return $sidebars_widgets;
}
add_filter('sidebars_widgets','wpbootstrap_checksidebars_widgets' );
//Now user can add custom widget areas
function custom_widget_areas_init() {
    register_sidebar( array(
    'name' => 'Front Page Widget Area',
    'id' => 'frontpage-widgets',
    'before_widget' => '',
    'after_widget' => '',
    'before_title' => '',
    'after_title' => '',
    ) );
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'custom_widget_areas_init' );