I have a site that was using the chromeblog child theme of chromenews. I wanted to change just a few .css values to adjust a couple colors and the sidebar width. Since I was under the impression I cannot have a child of a child, on my test site I did the following:
- made an exact copy of the chromeblog child theme into my own theme name.
- edited the functions.php and style.css to replace any reference to chromeblog with my theme name.
- Added my few .css changes to my style.css. Note that everything I was overriding is actually from chromenews, not the formerly used chromeblog child that I copied.
After getting by couple of changes working, I copied the new chuld theme to my main site and it works fine so far. But of course, on my test site I wanted to try a few other .css mods. After a few more small things (color overrides associated with the navbar) here is what has happened:
My submenus off the main navbar open, but any next level submenus off of those do not. After mucking around a lot clearing browser cache, clearing site optimizer cache, I activated chromeblog in place of my child. Problem persists. So then I activated chromenews, the parent theme of either of them. Problem persists. So I took the installer that I had created with the Duplicator plugin and started over with a new database and reinstalled the version of the site from BEFORE I had ever played around with child themes.
Problem STILL PERSISTED.
So finally I created a DIFFERENT subdomain with a new database and installed into that subdomain with that version of the site that uses the chromeblog theme. Works perfectly. Furthermore, the subdomain that was broken was not just broken when accessing from my computer, it was broken from my wife's as well and in multiple browsers, and she had never accessed the test site before the problem, so it couldn't be a cache issue on her end.
So summarizing: once the problem occurs, the only way to clear it is a new subdomain. A new database and rinstall doesn't work by itself. The URL of the site has to change to clear the problem. Anyway, I then played around with my child template again, and eventually broke it again and am back in that state. Given that a new database and fresh site install on a broken subdomain doesn't fix it, I feel like it still has to be some sort of cache issue, but for the life of me I am at a loss for where that would be and how to get at it given testing across multiple nrowsers and computers. Once it is broken, it is broken except on a mobile phone where it works fine in all cases. If it is of any use to know, my site is hosted on SiteGround.
The currently broken test site currently with chromeblog theme is: test.nnescenicmodelrr.com The working root domain site with my child theme in the non-broken state is: nnescenicmodelrr.com
Ay ideas appreciated. The fact of having to change subdomain name for the problem to go away has me frustrated.
Thanks.
P.S.: On the theory that the issue could be something I missed in creating the child theme, I realized I could eliminate using a different child theme of my own since I was only adding additional custom CSS and I can put that in using the custom CSS option in the existing chromeblog theme (which seems to work on a new test subdomain I created.) I don't know if I am likely to still run into the problem doing it that way or not because what I dropped in was just what I know worked so far, not the new stuff I was playing with. I will update this posting if I learn more or encounter the same problem without my own child theme. But even if that eliminates the problem, I still am trying to gain insight on how it can be that the problem can persist even across a fresh installation with all the wordpress, hosting site, and local browser caches have been flushed unless I change the subdomain name to one that never exhibited the problem to date. I am starting to think perhaps the SiteGround hoting servers have additional server caching that I have no control over.
