Get pagination working for custom loops within page templates

Question

I've got a custom loop for which I'd like pagination.

The codex and examples I've found online indicate that I should get pagination as long as I pass the 'paged' query variable into the loop as the 'page' variable ( or 'page' for a static front page). However in my case this simply doesn't work.

I'm not working with a static front page: just a normal Page.

What I'm seeing is that for every page that I navigate to, I get the same posts.

This is the template I'm working with:

<div class="container latest-posts group">
    <div class="row">

    <div class="container">     
            <header class="section-header row">
                <div class="col-xs-12">
                    <h2 "><?php the_title()  ?></h2>
                </div>
            </header>
        </div>

        <section id="latest-posts" class="col col-xs-12 col-sm-8 js-masonry">
            <?php
            /*
             *  latest posts
             */
        if ( get_query_var('paged') ) $paged = get_query_var('paged');
            if ( get_query_var('page') ) $paged = get_query_var('page');



            $args = array(
                'posts_per_page' => 7,
                    'offset'    => '5',
                    'paged' => $paged
            ) ;

            $my_query = new WP_Query($args) ;

            while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
            <article class="frontpage-news-article">
                <div class="inner">
                    <h3>
                        <a href="<?php the_permalink()  ?>">
                            <?php the_title()  ?>
                        </a>
                    </h3>

                    <?php   include( get_stylesheet_directory() . "/templates/post-meta.php") ;   ?>

                    <p><?php  the_excerpt(); ?></p>
                    <p><a href="<?php echo get_permalink()  ?>">read more</a></p>
                </div>
            </article>
            <?php endwhile; ?>

        <?php  
        // Reset postdata
        wp_reset_postdata(); 
        ?>

            <footer class="paging group">
                <?php next_posts_link('&laquo; Older Entries') ?>
                <?php previous_posts_link('Newer Entries &raquo;') ?>

                <?php
                    wp_pagenavi( array(
                        'query' =>$my_query )
                    )
                ?>
            </footer>

        </section> <!-- ENDS #latest-posts  -->

        <aside class="sidebar col-xs-12 col-sm-4 group" role="complementary">
            <ul>
                <?php   dynamic_sidebar('primary') ?>
            </ul>
        </aside><!-- .sidebar -->
    <?php 


    ?>
    </div> <!-- ENDS .container -->
</div>

As you can by the code, I've been trying both wordpress's native pagination calls and also wp-pagenavi. Both of them yield the same undesirable results.

Answer 1

By seeing your code, you are creating the $args array but not passing it to the WP_Query. Try using the below way.

$args = array(
     'posts_per_page' => 7,
      'offset'    => '5',
      'paged' => $paged
 ) ;
$my_query =new WP_Query($args);
......