Wordpress plugin shortcode not working

Question

I have a shortcode defined in a plugin as follows:

// [tag1] -> Some Longer Text
function shortcode_example1() {
    return 'Some Longer Text';
}
add_shortcode('tag1', 'shortcode_example1');

Now within a wordpress page I am trying to access the plugin as follows:

[tag1]

However, the shortcode is not run and the output is just "[tag1]". Can you help?

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

There are a couple of things to check here

• One: Is your plugin activated.

• Two: Is your shortcode in your main plugin file. If that code is in another file inside your plugin, did you make sure to include that extra file into your main plugin file

• Three: Don't you have any type of error in your plugin file that deactivates your plugin after activation. Have you set debug to true. One of the site's members have an excellent debugging plugin available for download on wordpress.org called Debug Objects

• Four: Try moving your shortcode to your theme's functions.php to make sure that your shortcode is actually working. If it doesn't work inside your theme, the problem might actually be in your theme itself

• Five: As suggested by @helgatheviking, aren't you filtering the the_content() in any way that might cause this behavior

• Six: If all of the above fails, deactivate all plugins, switch to a bundled theme, and recheck. If the problem persist, upgrade/reinstall Wordpress, as this might be a corrupted core file then

Answer 2

I had the same problem:

Turns out I was missing

<?php 

at the top of the file.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

add this

    add_filter('the_content', 'do_shortcode');

Answer 4

Thanks for your responses. After further investigation, I found that the plugin file where my shortcode was defined was showing up as "inactive". Once I moved my shortcode definitions into an active file, then everything began to work. I hope this is useful for anybody who runs into this in the future.

Thanks again!