Sliders are awesome because of the design elements and utilization of webpage real estate. Sometime it happens that you install a WordPress Slider plugin by following all mentioned steps but still the slider doesn’t work. It frustrates as a user because of the expectation to embed the slider in no time (as mentioned by the developer) and then facing troubles. Here are few common scenarios which you face while having a bad day with installed slider plugin.

• Pasted the shortcode or template tag, but slider not appearing at all
• Slides not sliding but appearing below one another
• White Screen of Death. Page showing blank screen
• Text of different slides overlapping
• Google Fonts not loading for the sliders
• and the issues continue…

Well, finally in one sentence, the slider is not working as per the demo shown by its developer.

You may contact the developer to get a fix for the slider but it may take some time for the developer to revert back. Here are few reasons or solutions to fix the issue by yourself.

#1 JavaScript Files Missing – Most of the Slider plugins load their own JS files and any of those dependent JS files are not loading, the slider will not work. You can check the error on browser’s console (open console in Chrome by pressing F12 key). If the JS file is not loading or giving 404 error, check the folder and see if the folder of JS file is having file status as 755.

#2 Duplicate jQuery Files – WordPress loads jQuery file from wp-includes folder. In few cases specially with premium themes, the theme also loads another jQuery file. One can check that in the HTML source of the page (see HTML page source by pressing CTRL + U in Chrome browser). If there are multiple jQuery files loading on the page, the slider may not work. In certain cases the minimal version of jQuery loading from Google API server, in those cases also the slider may not work. One can check themes’ functions.php file and see if there is an option to de-register the jQuery loading from theme. One can also check the header.php file of theme as in some cases, you may find hard coded jQuery inclusion in HEAD area.

#3 Other JS Conflict – On average 10 – 15 plugins remain active on a WordPress site. Sometimes you may see JS conflict because of a particular plugin or even the theme. Best way to find out the conflict is to check the browser console (by pressing F12). If you find any console error, try to deactivate he plugin which is causing issue. If not able to find the specific plugin to deactivate, try deactivating one at a time and see if it helps.

#4 Embed Code (Shortcode, Template Tag, widget) Not Placed – Creating a slider in admin area is only half job done. If you have not placed the slider’s embed code which may be shortcode, template tag or widget (as per your requirement), the slider will not appear. Check if you have placed the slider’s embed code exactly at the place where you are checking and expecting to appear.

#5 JS Disabled on Browser – Check your browser’s setting panel and see if JS is disabled on the same. Browsers like Chrome, Firefox, IE are having a feture to disable JS which means the JavaScript will not run on the browser. In that case, slider will not run on your computer’s browser. This is a local problem as the slider will keep working on your site’s visitor’s browsers. To check  if JS is enabled on your browser, open this page.

#6 Access Issues – Certain sliders generate a cropped image and save that in a folder. If the plugin is not having access to create such folder, sliders or specially the images will not appear. Check if the plugin’s folder is having file status 755. Also check the sub-folder’s file status.

#7 CSS Conflict with Theme or Plugin – Like JS conflicts, sometimes you may find CSS conflict with other installed plugins or theme. Use the inspect element feature or Google Chrome or Firebug too of Firefox to see the CSS of the slider and try to find if any conflict with a particular element.

#8 PHP Errors – White screen of death appears because of the PHP error on the page. To check the error, enable WP_DEBUG via wp-config.php file. Read more about enabling WP_DEBUG here. In most of the cases, the PHP error occurs because of the extra spacing at the start of the PHP code. Certain servers throw ‘Header already sent’ error in that case. Remove those extra spaces and upload the file again.

#9 Allowed Memory Exhausted – Creating s slideshow with lot many slides is a memory consuming task. If your WordPress installation is running out of memory to execute the task, you many see this error “Allowed Memory xxxxxxxx Exhausted”. You need to increase memory size. Read this article to know more about it.

#10 Multisite/Network Issue – If you are running WordPress Multisite (Network sites) and used Network Activate option to activate the slider plugin, the slider may not work. Some WordPress sliders are deigned in such a way that you need to activate the slider plugin individually on each site’s dashboard rather than network activate. So on each site’s dashboard, you can create different sliders and embed inside that site only.

Apart from these, if you have faced similar issue and found other fix, please share that by commenting on this article. Share the article with your followers to make them aware about these 10 possible fixes for a non working slider or carousel or slideshow on WordPress powered site.