Only display the first of a series of events on the homepage/blog

[kingdom vision]

At the last update I was advised to untick the Recurring Events box on the General Settings page to get around a bug that stopped events showing on my homepage. The thread is here https://theeventscalendar.com/support/forums/topic/posts-are-not-beng-fed-to-home-page-theme-is-flying-news/#post-1004255

I need to tick this box again as at the moment, when a series for events is created, the whole series shows on my frontpage, which looks messy. When I do it just shows a selection of really old posts (I’m not quite able to work out if it’s just the oldest posts) in my current theme (Flying News). When I change over to Twenty Fourteen it shows all the events in date order from the future ie events in 2017. It’s supposed to show all the latest updates.

This used to work fine and I would love to have it work like it used to again. Meantime I’ve just added a series, there’s only 2 dates in the series, but you can see how it looks on the homepage http://www.kingdomvision.co.uk without that box ticked – which is the most sensible view available to me so far.

[Josh]

Hey Tracey,

Thanks for following up with us.

Looking at your theme, there appear to be some filters on the content of which there are two “date” filters that show different results depending on which is clicked. On the surface, it looks like this is potentially what is causing the issue on that page with the old events showing up. There could be a filter preset on the content to pull oldest first.

As for the far into the future events displaying with the default theme activated, would you mind sending me a screenshot of this with a mix of events and posts included in that breakdown so I can get a better vision of whats happening there?

Thanks!

[kingdom vision]

When the box to only display the first in a series of events is ticked, it makes no difference whether I change the filter on my Flying News Theme to ascending or descending – it still shows the oldest posts first.

The default theme lists events as though they were published on the date they take place. So the top item on the homepage is an event taking place in 2017, followed by some events in 2016 etc. Posts appear according to the actual date published and as we have a significant number of events happening in the future, posts don’t appear for a few pages. I’ll attach the screenshot as requested (if you tell me how!) but it only shows the event happening furthest into the future.

I’ve also noticed that RSS emails are triggered by the date of the event and not by the date they are published. We only allow events in a series on the calendar up to 9 months ahead. At the moment I’m only receiving RSS emails when the next date in a series is added because it is within that 9 months timespan. Other events only come through on RSS if they are beyond that 9 month timespan. I’m guessing my issue and the RSS issue are related?

[Josh]

Hey Tracey,

Thanks for following up here.

Looking at your theme, the loop on the homepage appears to be all of your events/posts queued up irregardless of the date. On initial page load I’m seeing items from 2014, 2012, and 2015. As far as the events included, as you are noting, they should be displaying (and traditionally in chronological order) based on the event date rather than the date published. This should be the same for RSS feeds, however, I’m not sure what you’re using to trigger the emails but it’s possible that you could select to have them sent when you publish them.

Let me know if this helps.

Thanks!

[kingdom vision]

The home page shows events as they get published or updated (hence the mix of 2015 and 2016 dates) and any posts that have been published or updated (hence the 2012 date). That is how I’ve used Events Calendar on my homepage since I first bought it 3 years ago. I use an Events Calendar page to show events in event order.

The Recurring Events box used to work so that “Recurring event instances (PRO): When checked only the next upcoming event in a recurring event sequence will show. This can be useful to unclutter your calendar. When unchecked, all instances will show.” (See https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/wp-admin-settings-overview/) Unfortunately the Recurring Events box no longer works – it hasn’t done so since the last upgrade to Events Calendar (See https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/order-events-in-main-blog-loop-by-post-date/), but it’s making my homepage look very messy when a series of events gets added. Which is why I’m chasing this up again now that some of the other bugs have been sorted. I need this facility back again!

The RSS should publish events and posts as they get published – it always did before but hasn’t since the Events Calendar upgrade. The two issues may or may not be linked, but for this thread sorting out the recurring events box is my priority – I can open another thread for the RSS feeds if necessary.

[Josh]

Hey,

I think we may be going down a bit of a rabbit hole and taking a step back and looking at the issue you describe when you have a default theme active could be the root to understanding the rest of the situation here with your current theme.

So, I’ve currently got a default theme active and have the options to show only the first instance of a recurring event as well as including the events in the main blog loop selected. With this, my main blog loop is displaying as expected:

1. Only the first instance of recurring events are included in the loop
2. Only events that have passed are included in the main blog loop

I believe the issue you’re facing is related to the second thing above. When you have those settings selected and have a default theme set, you mentioned that your blog loop then contains all of your future events even into 2017 at the top of your blog loop? Does this persist if you deactivate all other plugins as well as have a default theme active?

Also, you included a link to https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/order-events-in-main-blog-loop-by-post-date/ is this code that you still have active on the site when you’re testing with a default theme?

Finally, I did want to point out this knowledgebase item on customizing RSS feed for events. As you can see, the expected behavior (which you can modify with a snippet from that article) is for the events to display there by event date rather than publication date as well.

Thanks!

[kingdom vision]

Can you clarify that you are helping me to have events displayed in my blog loop as they are posted and not in date order? With the default theme the events get shown in date order (most future first), which is not what I want.

If I deactivate all other plugins in the default theme the blog loop continues to show events in date order – most future first. It shows them in post order in my Flying News theme.

I haven’t ever used the code suggested in the link as I want to be able to select the recurring instances box. I had meant to send you another link that states that what I want to do doesn’t work in 3.12. I can’t find it though so I’m wondering whether this is addressed in a recent update. I’ve been wary of updating recently but I will look at it again later today.

Thank you for the RSS info and I’ll look at that later today too.

[Josh]

Hey Tracey,

The first thing I would like to do is figure out what may be going on on the site that is preventing the correct, default behavior when just our plugins and a default theme are used. Based on what you’re describing, when you have just our plugins and a default theme activated, the events included in the main blog loop aren’t being displayed and output as expected.

The expected output in the above scenario is for just current and past events (not future events) to be included in the loop and displayed in order based on the event date and not the date the event was published on (like the regular blog posts).

With this in mind, it sounds like your theme is currently handling the alternative that you are looking for (displaying based on “Posted on” date rather than the event date) however, the other issue of future events getting included and cluttering your loop is still persisting from above.

So, if we’re able to narrow in on what is causing the above inclusion of the future events, we should hopefully fix the issues you’re having with your chosen theme whenever it is active.

To help in diagnosing then, would you mind emailing a database dump from your site to support[at]theeventscalendar.com?

Thanks!

[kingdom vision]

When you say future events, do you mean all the recurring events beyond the first in the recurring series? Or any future event even if there is only one instance?

If you mean recurring events beyond the first in the series then I understand you, but if the expected output excludes all future events, even if only one instance is posted, then I’m confused as all future events are included in the blogroll in the default theme with just the Events Calendar plug-ins activated. (I’ve now updated to the latest Events Calendar plug-ins and still the same result)

I’m not familiar with database dumps. Can you advise where I’d find it and what exactly I’m looking for?

I used the RSS code you recommended to overwrite the previous code I’d been given and it worked. So I’m very happy on that front!

[Josh]

Hey Tracey,

I’m glad the RSS information worked for you.

If you mean recurring events beyond the first in the series then I understand you, but if the expected output excludes all future events, even if only one instance is posted, then I’m confused as all future events are included in the blogroll in the default theme with just the Events Calendar plug-ins activated. (I’ve now updated to the latest Events Calendar plug-ins and still the same result)

With my original test where I had a mix of posts, single events, and recurring events the future events were being excluded and it sounded like there was something strange happening on your site in this regard.

I am not however seeing the future events after switching to a different default theme. I’ve cleaned out all content on the site and am doing some tests with the different types of content (and settings) to determine if there currently is a bug in this behavior.

I apologize for the inconvenience here and will follow up after I finish digging into what may be happening vs the expected behavior.

Thanks!

[Support Droid]

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