Custom post type pagination error

Question

Another one of these paging errors you see here so often. I searched high and low for a fix but have come up with nada so far.

I am paging CPT results using my archive-{$post_type}.php template and getting an incomplete return of posts. I have set posts_per_page to 8, and am return 3 pages to get 24 results. There are 27 posts, so I am missing 3 (ie. paging falls short of showing last 3 posts).

Here's my template file (HTML stripped for clarity):

<?php   /* SET UP */

        wp_reset_query();

        // Selected team member
        $team_member_id = $_GET['member'];

        // Top post by menu order
        $top_post = get_posts('post_type=team&numberposts=1&orderby=menu_order&order=ASC');
        $top_post_id = $top_post[0]->ID;


        // Set $current_team_member_id
        if ($team_member_id) {
            $current_team_member_id = $team_member_id;
        } else {
            $current_team_member_id = $top_post_id;
        }

?>


<?php   /* MENU */

        // Paging
        $page = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;

        // Args
        $args = array(
            'post_type'=> 'team',
            'posts_per_page' => '8',
            'paged' => $page,
            'orderby' => 'menu_order',
            'order' => 'ASC',
        );


        // New instance of WP_Query
        $loop = new WP_Query($args);


        if ($loop->have_posts()) :

?>


<?php next_posts_link('<span class="nextpost">Next</span>' ); ?>
<?php previous_posts_link('<span class="previouspost">Back</span>' ); ?>


<?php while ($loop->have_posts()) : $loop->the_post(); ?>

<?php   $post_id = get_the_ID();
        $postclass =  '';

        if( $current_team_member_id == $post_id ) {

            $postclass = 'current'; 

        } elseif ( $top_post_id == $post_id && $current_team_member_id == NULL) {

            $postclass = 'current'; 

        } else {

            $postclass =  'post'; 

        } 

        $url = get_bloginfo('url').'?post_type=team&member='.$post_id.'&paged='.$page; 

?>

<a id="team-member-<?php print $post_id; ?>" href="<?php print $url; ?>" class="<?php print $postclass; ?> <?php print $top_post_id; ?>"><?php the_title() ;?></a><br>
<?php echo get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_exit_member_metabox_pos', true ); ?>

<?php endwhile; ?>


<?php   /* MEMBER PROFILE */

        $current_team_member_post = get_post($current_team_member_id ); 
        setup_postdata($current_team_member_post);

?>

<?php echo $current_team_member_post->post_title; ?>
<?php echo get_post_meta( $current_team_member_id , '_exit_member_metabox_pos', true ); ?>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php echo get_the_post_thumbnail($current_team_member_id, 'pic-third'); ?>



<?php else: ?>

    <p>Sorry, but this content is not available.</p>

<?php endif; ?>

What am I doing wrong? What's missing?

Answer 1

I think next_posts_link() is using the global $wp_query to determine pagination, but you've created a new query here. Try passing max_num_pages from your $loop query to it:

next_posts_link( '<span class="nextpost">Next</span>', $loop->max_num_pages );

Answer 2

As per @Milo's comments the solution lies in using query_posts(); in this instance, instead of WP_Query.

The fix needed three changes:

1. Go to wp-admin > settings > reading and change the value of "blogs show at most" to a number smaller than that set in the query. I set it to 1.

2. Use query_posts($args); instead of $loop = new WP_Query($args);. I had started with this, but resorted to WP_Query as a workaround. As @Milo mentions this is not really necessary as only one loop is called in the template.

3. As the number of queries has been edited in wp-admin, any other loops in the theme need to be prepended by query_posts to set the number of posts retrieved.