Troubleshooting - Plugixa Easy Social Share Buttons

Start here. Most reports fall into one of these, and several of them are the plugin doing exactly what it should.

No buttons appear anywhere

Check	Where
Show share buttons is ticked	Settings -> General. When it is off the Overview says “Share buttons are switched off.”
There is at least one share set	Share sets. With none, the Overview says “No share sets yet, so no buttons appear anywhere.”
The set has a placement on this post type	The set’s Where it appears column. “Placed by hand” means it appears only where you put it
The post has not hidden them	The post editor’s Share buttons panel

The bell in the header lists the first two from any screen.

Buttons appear on posts but not on pages, products or archives

A placement is per post type. Open the set, go to Where it appears, and tick Pages, Products, Blog home or Archives as well. See Placements.

Automatic buttons never appear on search results, “not found” pages, feeds, or a password-protected post.

A post type is missing from “Show on”

Only public types with pages a visitor reads are listed. Attachments and page builder templates, such as Elementor’s My Templates, are left out on purpose. To put buttons inside an Elementor template, use the Share buttons widget. A developer can change the list with the plugixa_social_share_placeable_post_types filter.

The floating sidebar does not show

• It is hidden in windows narrower than 1024 pixels, where it would cover the text. Use the Share bar under On phones for small screens.
• It appears once the reader has scrolled down the page, not at the very top.

The phone share bar does not show on my computer

It is shown only on screens up to 782 pixels wide. Narrow the browser window to see it.

The “Share” button is missing

The Share button opens the device’s own share sheet. In a browser that has none, which includes most desktop browsers, it is hidden on purpose.

The Messenger button is missing on computers

Messenger’s web dialog needs a Facebook app ID. Enter one under Settings -> Networks -> Facebook app ID. Without it, Messenger appears on phones only, where it opens the app.

The “+” does not appear

• It is not drawn under each post in a list of posts. A sidebar or bar on the same page keeps its own.
• A browser that does not support popovers does not show it.
• If every destination is already in the row, there is nothing for it to hold.

A spot moved to another share set

Each spot on each post type belongs to one set. Saving a set that claims a spot takes it from the set that had it. The wizard says so before you save, and the screen after saving lists what moved. To give it back, open the other set and claim the spot again.

A shortcode or block shows a note instead of buttons

“Share set 2 does not exist. It may have been deleted: choose another set, or remove these share buttons.”

The set it names was deleted. Only people who can edit posts see the note; visitors see nothing. Choose another set in the block, or change the number in the shortcode. Set numbers are never reused, so a new set will have a different number.

Share counts

A network shows no count

Only Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, VK and Odnoklassniki report counts, and Facebook only with your own app token. Every other network shows your own visitors’ clicks. A button with neither number shows nothing, never a zero.

No number shows at all

Cause	Fix
Counts are off in the set	Tick Show share counts in the set’s Layout step
The number is below the threshold	Settings -> Counts -> Hide counts below. The default hides anything under 5
The page is a list of posts	Rows and sidebars on the blog home and archives show no counts
The count has not been fetched yet	Counts are fetched in the background, in batches, by a scheduled job. Allow a few hours on a large site
WP-Cron is not running	The count job is a WordPress scheduled event, plugixa_social_share_refresh_counts. It runs only when WordPress’s scheduled events run on your site
You are looking at the wizard’s preview	“Counts appear on the site, not in the preview.”

Facebook shows clicks, not shares

Without a Facebook app token, Facebook is never asked and its button shows your own click total. Add a token under Settings -> Counts.

Counts dropped to nothing after a change

Networks count by exact address. Counts restart when:

• the site moved to https, to a new domain, or to new permalinks. Use Recover counts after a move under Settings -> Counts.
• URL to share was changed under Settings -> General. Changing it splits your existing counts. Set it back to recover them.

See Share counts.

Share analytics shows nothing

• “No clicks recorded yet” means exactly that. Recording starts when the plugin is installed and nothing is backfilled.
• Clicks are recorded by the plugin’s script. A set made only of plain links, such as Email and the AI assistants, loads no script and records no clicks.
• A click is recorded against a published post. Clicks on a draft’s preview are not recorded.
• Clicks on follow buttons are never recorded.

GA4 share events do not arrive

• Report share clicks to Google Analytics 4 must be ticked under Settings -> Google Analytics.
• Your site must already load the Google tag or Google Tag Manager. The plugin never loads Google’s script.
• With Tag Manager only, the event arrives in the data layer as share. You need a GA4 event tag in Tag Manager that fires on it.
• The event goes through your own tag, so your consent settings apply to it as they do to everything else that tag sends.

Buttons look unstyled for a moment

Buttons in a widget area, a theme template or an Elementor Theme Builder template are drawn after the page’s files were decided, so their stylesheet is added at the end of the page. See Performance.

Buttons placed in the post’s own content, and automatic placements, have their stylesheet in the head.

Buttons print twice

• After an import, the other share plugin’s buttons show beside these while it is still active. Deactivate it.
• Importing twice makes a second copy of each set. Delete the copies you do not want.
• A post that has both an automatic placement and a block or shortcode in its content shows both. Hiding the post’s automatic buttons does not hide the ones in its content.

Link previews

The preview shows the wrong picture or text

Check Settings -> Link previews. If it names another plugin, such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math, that plugin prints the tags and its settings decide the preview. This plugin’s image choice changes nothing there.

Use Show the tags on that tab to see exactly what this plugin prints for your latest post.

There are two sets of tags

The plugin steps aside for the SEO plugins it recognises. A theme or plugin it does not recognise can be declared with the plugixa_social_share_link_previews_printed_by filter, or you can untick Add Open Graph and X card tags where no SEO plugin does.

Follow buttons

“That is not a … profile”

The address is on the wrong service, or is a bare domain. Paste the profile’s own address, or type the name in the form the field suggests.

The follow block is empty

The row is drawn only for profiles you have saved. Add them under Follow buttons. Follow buttons are also not drawn while Show share buttons is off.

Settings will not save

• Changing settings needs the plugixa_social_share_manage_settings capability. Without it every field is read-only.
• A saved token or key is never shown again. An empty-looking field with dots in it means one is saved.

The menu is missing for another user

Plugixa Social Share appears for anyone holding at least one of the plugin’s capabilities. On a new install that is administrators only. Grant a capability with a role editor plugin. See Getting started.

Pro features PRO

Problem	Cause
A Pro option is not on the Settings screen	Pro’s options are inside the tabs, not in a menu of their own. Check that the Pro download, not the free one, is the plugin installed
The popup never opens for me	It opens at most once in the period chosen. Your browser remembers it. Try a private window
The popup opens on scroll on a phone, not on leaving	A touch screen has no pointer to leave with, so it opens at 70% of the page instead
The Save button does not show on an image	The image is narrower than the smallest width, has the nopin class, the screen has no mouse, or the post switched it off
Shared links are still the full address	A short link is made in the background after the first view. Networks whose counts are shown keep the full address
UTM tags are missing on some networks	Networks whose share counts are shown keep the plain address
The email form is not shown	“With the post not emailed and no list chosen, the form has nothing to do, and is not shown.” A chosen service also needs its key and list ID
The quote box shares fewer words than it shows	The shared text is cut to fit, at a word boundary

The admin screens

Problem	Cause
Pressing / does not open the search	The key types a slash while a text field, a dialog or an open menu has the keyboard, and it does nothing with Ctrl, Alt or Cmd held. Click an empty part of the screen first, or click the search box
The search does not find a share set	Share sets are searched by name, from two letters. Fewer letters list screens only
A Settings tab is missing from the search	Google Analytics and Link previews are listed only while those features run
There is no full-screen button	The browser cannot put a page in full screen. Safari on an iPhone is one
The WordPress menu has gone	The plugin is in full screen. Press Esc, or the full-screen button in the header
A sidebar section shows no screens	It was folded away. Click its heading
The Pro options are in English on a translated site	Pro reads its own translation file, and there is none for your language. See Translations

Still stuck

1. Open Overview and read the alerts and the What this costs a visitor card.
2. Re-read the page for the screen you are using.
3. Contact support through your Plugixa account, with the plugin version and a link to a page that shows the problem.