Settings lost repeatedly (outside of upgrade from Free to Pro)

[Gail]

We have the theme SKT BeFit PRO.

1. We first downloaded the “free” edition; set all settings as we wished. This included things like:
– home page slider: images
– home page three or four boxes

2. We created a child theme to tweak the CSS (free theme does not include textarea for “Custom CSS”). It seems that all our Theme Options & Customization disappeared and had to be re-entered.

3. We upgraded from Free to PRO. Again, all Theme Options & Customization disappeared. We read the thread “Upgrade from Free to Pro version”; we understand that Free and PRO have different settings in different places, but it would be kind of a nice welcome to your paying customers to transfer over what can be transferred. But we are past this now.

4. We created a child theme under PRO (not realizing that it had a textarea for Custom CSS). I believe that again all Theme Options were lost.

5. We wanted to show the theme prototype to a customer and had to change the base URL from the local machine name & port to an external one (http://xxx.dtdns.net:8000/demo3). I have adjusted the base URL in WordPress many times before, and did it the same way this time: went into MySqlAdmin and ran
UPDATE demo3_options
SET option_value = REPLACE(option_value, ‘http://localhost:port/’, ‘http://newhost.dtdns.net:8000/’)
WHERE option_value LIKE ‘%http://localhost:port/%’);

The site was accessible, but once again all Theme Options were lost.
This is the most important loss. We will develop the site locally then upload to a real server. How can we do this without losing all settings?
Secondly, even after re-entering all the settings, the Social Media icons in the very top of the header were broken; when I moused over them they still linked to the old, local, host name. Some hours later, they are now working; I don’t know what I did to fix it.

7. Since the PRO version has a Custom CSS text area, I switched themes from SKT Befit PRO Child to the parent Skt Befit PRO. Again, the Theme Options for Home Page Slider and Section First Four Boxes were lost.

You cannot simply discard all settings whenever any little thing changes.
You must support migration of the site.

I will send site URL and Admin login details separately.

[Sonl Sinha]

Hi Gail,

I can sum it up here by saying the Child theme wasn’t created properly.

Now here is the thing. You don’t need to create a child theme as we have Custom CSS area to have your own CSS and it doesn’t get removed if we update the theme.

Also we send emails of update after theme update so the theme doesn’t get automatically updated without you knowing so again no chance of anything being lost.

I would again request you to use the original theme and let us know if the settings lost stops there.

Lastly check if you click on restore defaults by any mistake within appearance>theme options.

Regards,
Shri

[Gail]

the Child theme wasn’t created properly

We followed the advice at
http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/163301/versioning-import-of-parent-themes-style-css/182023#182023
, which the official WordPress Codex
https://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes#How_to_Create_a_Child_Theme
links to (at “See here a more detailed discussion”) as the definitive way to create a child theme. If you have a more official and supported way to create a child theme, please point me to it. Don’t just say it “wasn’t created properly” without telling me how to create one properly.

You don’t need to create a child theme as we have Custom CSS

Yes, I already knew this. I wrote this in my post:

the PRO version has a Custom CSS text area

But as I wrote, the biggest problem is when the base URL (including domain name and port) is changed. You did not respond to this problem.

Also we send emails of update after theme update so the theme doesn’t get automatically updated without you knowing so again no chance of anything being lost.

Sending an email is nice; but unless the upgrade contains major bugs (would you tell us if it did?), we will upgrade to the new version, of course. You did not say whether upgrading the theme loses our settings. Does it?

I would again request you to use the original theme and let us know if the settings lost stops there.

As I wrote, I already switched from my SKT BeFit PRO child theme to the parent SKT BeFit PRO. Settings were lost in the process. Since then, I have not made any changes that would cause settings to be lost.

I want to be assured that settings will not be lost when I move the site from one host to another. Based on my experience in item #5 above, they will be. This is not acceptable, with 100’s of settings that may have been changed. Please fix.

Lastly check if you click on restore defaults by any mistake within appearance>theme options.

I failed to mention it, but yes I actually had to do this once. I believe at item #7, settings were not simply reverted to defaults but were blanked out or set to nonsense values. For example, all the default font sizes were set to the same size, 10px. I had to click “restores defaults” to get back to reasonable numbers, then re-enter all my customizations.

In short, your response was a non-response. Please re-read what I wrote and respond substantively to my main concern.

[Author]

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