Support » Fixing WordPress » Convert to regular block no longer working – WP 5.6 Gutenburg

  • Hi there,

    I recently updated to WordPress 5.6, I’ve used the Gutenburg block editor to build my WooCommerce product pages. I use a lot of reusable blocks to do this, however, it now seems that when adding a reusable block and trying to convert it to a regular block it no longer works. It literally does nothing when you click on the convert to regular blocks link, which is now in a different position to the previous version so I assume something might have gone wrong with this functionality?

    Any help will greatly be appreciated, I have a staging website that needs to go live tomorrow which now cannot be completed because I can’t finish any pages without being able to convert global blocks and edit them.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 17 total)
  • Moderator Mel Choyce-Dwan

    (@melchoyce)

    Hey @alishaniven, I’m going to see if I can replicate this. In the meantime, would remaking your reusable blocks to block patterns work for you? It might work better in the long-term, if you update the content whenever you add the reusable block.

    https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/developers/block-api/block-patterns/

    Moderator Mel Choyce-Dwan

    (@melchoyce)

    I’m not able to replicate, so I’m wondering if there’s a plugin conflict happening.

    If you can install new plugins, install and activate “Health Check”: https://wordpress.org/plugins/health-check/

    It will add some additional feature under create a new menu position Tools > Site Health.

    On its troubleshooting tab, you can Enable Troubleshooting Mode. This will disable all plugins, switch to a standard WordPress theme (if available), allow you to turn your plugins on and off and switch between themes, without affecting normal visitors to your site. This allows you to test for various compatibility issues.

    There’s a more detailed description about how to use the Health Check plugin and its Troubleshooting Mode at https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/appendix/troubleshooting-using-the-health-check/

    Thread Starter alishaniven

    (@alishaniven)

    Hi there Mel,

    Thanks for the quick reply, it doesn’t seem to be a plugin conflict. Rather a problem with conversion of older blocks, what we had to do (painfully and with ZERO hours of sleep) was edit each global block by copying it into custom HTML block, convert the HTML block into regular blocks and then re-save it. After that conversion works, so it’s not a plugin conflict. I think there is a bug somewhere that is not allowing conversion of reusable blocks built on previous versions, this has never happened before, only with this update.

    We haven’t even managed to get halfway through all of our reusable blocks yet, we have close on 400.

    Thread Starter alishaniven

    (@alishaniven)

    Furthermore, I am using Chrome and half of the block editor settings are cutting off. Usually where one can toggle between PC, tablet and mobile and edit settings I can no longer access those settings because the block editor is actually cutting off half way through the pane

    Moderator Mel Choyce-Dwan

    (@melchoyce)

    Weird! Could you share a screenshot of your editor?

    Hi everyone,
    @alishaniven are you using a particular blocks plugin or just the core blocks?

    Thread Starter alishaniven

    (@alishaniven)

    Hey @melchoyce @htmgarcia

    Thanks for the replies, I really appreciate it. So after further troubleshooting and a bit of a clearer head after some sleep, we have found the following:

    1. We were using Gutentor for extra block options – there is a major conflict with the plugin and the latest version of WordPress, it slowed the site down dramatically and caused a host of issues on the pages. We have since removed it, but that did not resolve the conversion of re-usable blocks or the editor pane. It was just another issue we found while investigating.

    2. At the moment we have the following plugins in order to use full block editing mode on product pages:

    2.1 WooBuilder Blocks by PootlePress
    2.2 Caxton by PootlePress (required to make 2.1 work)
    2.3 Stackable (Premium) by Gambit Technologies, Inc
    2.4 Sticky Block by Senff

    3. The issue with the editing pain is found on smaller screens for example laptops, when I have a second large screen installed the pane is viewable completely.

    4. I’ve tried to create new blocks from scratch with only standard Gutenburg blocks, so nothing from either of the plugins above and convert that to a regular block but it does not work either.

    • This reply was modified 11 months, 3 weeks ago by alishaniven.
    Thread Starter alishaniven

    (@alishaniven)

    Below is a link to screenshots from the editing view of a product page, I selected a couple blocks here, one is a standard block and the other 2 are Stackable blocks/containers
    Screenshots

    I also experience the issue that my reusable blocks can not be converted to regular blocks. The button indeed does nothing. Most of my resuable blocks use “Gutenberg post blocks” by wpxpo.

    However I found out that when I click the “Edit” button of the resuable block and then click “Save” without making any modifications to the title of the resuable block I AM able to click the “Concert to regular block” to make it really a regular block again.

    I am having the same issue – “convert to regular blocks” does nothing.

    I am not using any of the plugins described above. I am using WP Astra as my theme, and Gutenberg Blocks (made by the same team). Otherwise, I am using no other blocks plugins.

    Same problem here. Reusable block created in the previous Gutenberg plugin (buttons) are not convertible to regular blocks in the new integrated block editor. It is painful

    Anyone who has an update on this? The issue still exists in WordPress 5.7.

    BLUE_LIFE

    (@blue_life)

    Same problem here BUT only with Chrome ( latest version ).
    Conversion to regular Block does work with Firefox.

    I tried on both Firefox and Vivaldi (Chrome based) without succes.

    It turns out you can convert your reusable blocks to regular ones, but the option is not where it used to be.

    First add your reusable block. Before you do anything else, click the outline icon on the top, then the name of your Reusable block where it is in the hierarchy. Next click the icon to the right of it that will say “convert to regular block” when you hover over it.

    But even though you just converted it, you might not be done. There might be a hurdle you have to remove before publishing the page.

    When you click publish, you might now see a set of checkboxes on the right with both the name of your post and the name of the reusable block. If you leave only the post checked, but not the block, you can’t publish. You can’t even just save draft without losing all of your changes.

    If you check both boxes, it updates the block, but you know you don’t want to do that so now you wonder how to get out of this mess.

    But… you can undo the option on the bottom right that says something like “always show publish checks.” Once you unselect that, now you can publish changes to your post without saving changes to the reusable block. And it should also work on any other post in the future.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 17 total)
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