Before raising a support question for WP Portfolio, please check the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) below. 95% of questions we receive are already answered in the FAQ!

If you cannot resolve your issue from reading the FAQ, then please raise your issue on the WP Portfolio Support Forum. Please do not contact us via the website. This ensures your issue gets resolved as quickly as possible, and that others can benefit from the support answers.

Troubleshooting

I’ve updated to V1.20, and my thumbnails are broken. Why?

Shrink The Web (STW) have made a large change to their systems for free (basic) accounts. Now you need to lock your account on the websites that you use the thumbnail service for generating screenshots if you’re using a free account. (See next FAQ for more detail). The reason STW added the locking feature is to ensure a high quality of service due to the large number of free accounts on the system. The new security ensures that the system is able to sustain the current demand.

Why do I see an intermediate page hosted by ShrinkTheWeb when I click on a thumbnail in my portfolio?

There were some users abusing the free accounts on Shrink The Web service to trick website visitors into going to website different to those in the thumbnails. As a security measure, the interstitial page shows visitors what they’re visiting before they get there.

This option cannot be disabled unless you have a paid (pro) account. Alternatively, you can use your own custom thumbnails within WP Portfolio.

When should I use the `Lock to Account` feature in STW?

Lock to Account is a feature in STW that ensures only you can use your account to generate thumbnails. It’s essentially extra security. To use the locking feature, you need to go to `My Account` in STW, then `Security`. The section marked `Lock to account` is what you need to take a look at.

• If you have a basic (free) account with STW, then you’ll need to associate your website with your account.
• If you have a pro (paid) account with STW, then locking your account to certain domains is optional. If you do lock your account, you may need to specify the IP address of your server if you domain name doesn’t work.

Why can’t I refresh a standard website with a Free (Basic) STW Account?

For basic accounts, STW now uses javascript to load a screenshot. The screenshots are no longer cached for Free (Basic) accounts. Therefore there’s no need for a refresh link, as the image being shown is always the latest image.

If you have a pro (paid) STW account, then the images are cached on your server in the usual way. (Just as a note, the refresh link still works for custom thumbnails and for the pro account thumbnails).

Why are my thumbnails not showing up straight away?

The Shrink The Web (STW) servers do not create thumbnails straight away once they are requested. It typically takes up to 2 minutes for the thumbnail to be created and made available.

How do I force the thumbnail to be re-captured?

You need to visit the STW website and request it. Free users are able to do this up to 5 times per month.

My thumbnails are not showing up? Help!

There could be a number of reasons why the thumbnail files are not being downloaded. However, here’s a list of things to check.

• Ensure you’ve correctly set the STW Access Key ID and STW Secret Key options in the Portfolio Settings.
• Ensure you’ve selected the correct STW account type in the Portfolio Settings.
• Ensure the cache directory exists. Although the plugin tries to create the cache directory, some server set-ups don’t let it work. So create the cache directory with permissions 0777 as /wp-content/plugins/wp-portfolio/cache/.
• Check that you’ve added some websites to your portfolio.
• Check that you have [wp-portfolio] in one of your pages. You can specify specific groups later, you just want to check that all of the websites are shown.
• Ensure that the Website HTML Template, Group HTML Template and Template CSS fields in Layout Settings contain something. If they don't, you can copy the default templates from lower down that page.
• Check that your web host is using PHP5 and not the outdated PHP4 (that information can be found in the Server Compatibility Checker on the Portfolio Settings page).

Why are my custom thumbnails not showing up?

• The most likely reason is that the URL for the image is incorrect. Copy and paste the image URL into your web browser, and make sure you see the image correctly. If you don't see the image correctly, then there's no way that the plugin can load the image correctly.
• The other likely cause is that cache directory does not exist (see above).

I get the following error, what's going on? (1)

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or
T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in
/home/path/to/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wp-portfolio/wplib/utils_formbuilder.inc.php
on line 30

WP Portfolio only supports PHP5, not PHP4. The error above is due to function class_exists() only existing in PHP5 and not PHP4.

Most web hosting companies have the old PHP4 switched on by default. Just ask them to change your hosting account to PHP5. Some hosting accounts allow you to do this yourself from within your hosting control panel.

I get the following error, what's going on? (2)

Fatal error: Call to undefined function wp_get_current_user() in ...\wp-includes\capabilities.php on line 1059

Some plugins seem to force the include of files in strange orders. Often these are plugins relating to access control or users. To fix this, edit wp-portfolio.php and add the following bit of code at the very top.

require_once ABSPATH .'/wp-includes/pluggable.php';

I've not added this to WP Portfolio in the main code, simply because it might break other plugins. It shouldn't be necessary to add this line at all, because WP Portfolio doesn't do anything particularly exotic in the code.

When trying to show the portfolio, I get an error about a missing column. What do I do?

This is usually due to the plugin tables not being created properly. Just deactivate and then activate the plugin. The plugin should automatically detect that the tables need upgrading and fix it for you.

When looking at the settings page, I just get a blank page or errors.

This has been encountered when an open_basedir restriction in effect security restriction is in place, typically for those with plesk-based hosting. It's probably justified for standard users as it prevents them from accessing unwanted dirs. However, it may need to be turned off by people who want to do more with their website. The key for all those interested is to turn off "open_basedir restriction" in their Plesk hosting account. Speaking to your hosting company if you need help with this issue.

Features and Support

Does WP Portfolio support paging?

Yes it does. To show 3 websites per page, use [wp-portfolio sitesperpage="3"], or to show all websites, just use [wp-portfolio] as normal. Check the documentation for full usage details.

What is the WP Portfolio group syntax?

• To show all groups, use [wp-portfolio]
• To show just the group with an ID of 1, use [wp-portfolio groups="1"]
• To show groups with IDs of 1, 2 and 4, use [wp-portfolio groups="1,2,4"]

Please note that the order of the group numbers e.g. "1,2,3" does not indicate the order in which they are shown. The order of IDs in the brackets are in fact ignored. The order of the groups is determined by the order value for each group in the admin area.

Does WP Portfolio support shortcodes?

Yes it does. Shortcodes can go anywhere in the website template or website details.

In the settings, you can only use three sizes of thumbnails; Small (120 x 90), Large (200 x 150) and Extra Large (240 x 340). Is it possible to get custom image size of 550 x 227?

• Basic (Free) STW Accounts - No, unfortunately not you can only use the standard Shrink The Web thumbnail sizes.
• Pro (Paid) STW Accounts - Yes you can, if you have that feature selected in your account.

Tips and Tricks

How do I hide the category title and description on the portfolio page?

Go to Layout Settings in the WP Portfolio admin section. Change the value of Group HTML Template to   and save your settings. That will remove the category details from any page showing your portfolio of websites.