get_theme_mod() only working when the customizer is open

Question

I'm using the Customizer API to enable/disable different sections of a website.

When I have the customizer window open it seems that get_theme_mod() is returning a value ok. However as soon as I save and close the customizer window, get_theme_mod() does not return anything.

I've seen some other questions about using type="option" and get_option() but I want to see if I can get this to work.

My settings look like this:

$wp_customize->add_setting( 'my_banner_setting', array(
    'default'           => '1',
    'sanitize_callback' => 'my_sanitize_checkbox',
) );

And then I get them like this:

if ( get_theme_mod( 'my_banner_setting' ) == 1 ) {

    get_template_part( 'sections/banner' );

}

Is there something I'm missing?

Answer 1

Looks like I was able to fix it by adding a default value at the end of get_theme_mod()

if (  get_theme_mod('my_banner_setting', 1) == 1 ) {

    // proceed

}

Not sure if there's another solution but this fixed it.

update

Looks like it was actually because my "1" was in quotes, removing the quote worked and I didn't have to declare the default in get_theme_mod() again.

$wp_customize->add_setting( 'my_banner_setting', array(
    'default'           => 1,
    'sanitize_callback' => 'my_sanitize_checkbox',
) );