Common issues

The problems people actually hit with Stoat, and what each one turns out to be.

The header has no menu in it

No menu is assigned to Primary Menu. Stoat does not fall back to a list of your pages. Appearance → Menus → create one → tick Primary Menu. See the primary menu.

My site looks completely unstyled after making a child theme

The child’s functions.php is not enqueueing the parent stylesheet. Stoat registers get_stylesheet_uri() — which in a child theme is the child’s style.css — so the parent sheet is never requested unless you ask for it. The snippet is in create a child theme, and it is not the usual boilerplate.

The featured image does not show on the post

Customize → Single Post → Show featured image (top) is off by default. See featured image.

A listing row shows an image I did not choose

With no featured image, Stoat uses the first image in the post content that is at least 300px wide. Set a featured image, or turn Show thumbnail off. See thumbnails.

My logo is invisible

Almost always a dark logo on the Dark header skin, or the reverse. There is one logo upload, not one per skin — upload the version that suits the bar you chose.

The header wraps or overlaps on a laptop

Too much in the bar. In order of what to try:

  1. Fewer top-level menu items — move some into dropdowns
  2. A smaller navigation font size0.9em
  3. Fewer social icons
  4. A shorter button label
  5. The Nav below layout, which gives the menu its own row

The header button is not there, or shows the wrong text

Two likely causes:

  • The button needs both Button text and Button link. Either empty and nothing is printed.
  • You are signed in while customizing, so the preview shows the signed-in version of the button. Check the logged-out version in a private window. See header button.

A dropdown does not open on my tablet

Dropdowns open on hover, and a touchscreen has no hover. Above the tablet width the desktop bar is used, so a tablet in landscape gets a menu whose parents cannot be opened by tapping. Point top-level items at real pages rather than using them as pure labels. See dropdowns.

My page’s title appears twice

The page has Hide page title? unticked and an H1 in the content as well. Tick it in Page options. See page options.

The page is narrower than I set it to

Three things resolve a width, in this order — the last one wins:

  1. Customize → Layout → Page default width (or Post / Default)
  2. the page’s own Page options → Content width
  3. a narrow width larger than the content width gives way to the content width

See narrow or full.

Bold text looks smeared

The font you installed does not include the weight being asked for, so the browser is faking it. Install the real weight under Appearance → Fonts, or choose a weight the family actually has. See custom fonts.

My translation does nothing

Usually one of: the site language is not set to the language you translated; or the .mo was saved inside the theme folder and a theme update removed it. Save to wp-content/languages/themes/. See .po and .mo files.

My CSS edits disappeared after an update

They were made to the theme’s own files. Use Customize → Additional CSS or a child theme; both survive updates. See custom CSS.

Search returns my privacy policy

Customize → Misc → Disable pages in search results is off by default. Turn it on to return posts only. See search.

Last updated September 13, 2026

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