Posts not showing on page

Question

Can anyone spot anything wrong with this code(see below). No content is showing up on my page. Many thanks in advance.

<?php 
    $args = array(
    'posts_per_page' => 3,
    'orderby' => 'rand',
    'category_name' => 'testimonials'
    );

    $query = new WP_Query( $args );
        // The Loop
        if ( $query->have_posts() ) {
            echo '<ul class="testimonials">';
        while ( $query->have_posts() ) {
            $query->the_post();
            echo '<li class="clear">';
            echo '<figure class="testimonial-thumb">';
            the_post_thumbnail('testimonial-mug');
            echo '</figure>';
            echo '<aside class="testimonial-text">';
            echo '<h3 class="testimonial-name">' . get_the_title() . '</h3>';
            echo '<div class="testimonial-excerpt">';
            the_content('');
            echo '</div>';
            echo '</aside>';
            echo '</li>';
        }
        echo '</ul>';
    }
    wp_reset_postdata();
?>

Answer 1

There aren't any errors in your code. I'm able to copy / paste it into functions.php and return 3 posts categorized under "testimonials" without issue.

By default this WP_Query will retrieve only 'post' matches so if you are using pages or a custom post type you'll need to specify that in your query args as:

$args['post_type'] = 'page';

or

$args['post_type'] = 'custom_post_type_name';

The only other thing to check is to ensure you've added posts to the "testimonials" category in the WordPress dashboard.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

I have done the same with get_posts() method. Here is the code i used to get posts on my page. I was filtering my Posts according to their categories, so i gave the category slug in category_name, you can leave it blank if you want all your posts to be shown.

<?php $args = array(
    'posts_per_page'   => 5,
    'offset'           => 0,
    'category'         => '',
    'category_name'    => '{category slug}',
    'orderby'          => 'date',
    'order'            => 'DESC',
    'include'          => '',
    'exclude'          => '',
    'meta_key'         => '',
    'meta_value'       => '',
    'post_type'        => 'post',
    'post_mime_type'   => '',
    'post_parent'      => '',
    'author'       => '',
    'post_status'      => 'publish',
    'suppress_filters' => true 
);
$lastposts = get_posts( $args );
        foreach($lastposts as $post) :
        setup_postdata($post); ?>

        <li<?php if ( $post->ID == $wp_query->post->ID )
         { 
            echo ' class="current"'; 

         } else {} ?>>

            <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php 
            the_title();


             ?></a>
             <?php
             the_excerpt();
             ?>

        </li>

    <?php endforeach; ?>