Elementor breaks site with custom shortcode

Question

I created a custom shortcode which includes a special loop which includes all posts from different multisite blogs. This solution is provided by this plugin: https://rudrastyh.com/. The shortcode is perfectly working an all normal pages and posts.

But I am also using the page builder Elementor. When inserting this shortcode into Elementor some strage things are happening: in editor mode the shortcode output is showing up twice, once at the top of the editor area and once again at the place where I actually put the shortcode. When I hit save, my whole site breaks and shows a standard image when accesing any page. Then the the only solution is to recover my latest database backup.

Here I show you some screenshots of the editor mode:

Here my shortcode fuction:

// Add Shortcode
function all_events_shortcode ($atts) {

    // Attributes
    $atts = shortcode_atts(
        array(
            'lang' => '',
            'blog' => '',
        ),
        $atts
    );





        // Network_Query parameters
        $args = array(
            'posts_per_page' => 14,
            'blog_id' => esc_attr($atts ['blog']),
            'lang' => esc_attr($atts ['lang']),
            'orderby' => 'meta_value_num',
            'order' => 'ASC',
            'post_type' => 'noo_event',
            'meta_key'  => '_noo_event_start_date',
            'meta_value' => date( "U" ),
            'meta_compare' => '>'
        );

        $network_q = new Network_Query( $args );

        // if there are posts, then print <ul>
        if( $network_q->have_posts() ) :
            echo '<div id="all_events">';

            // run the loop
            while( $network_q->have_posts() ) : $network_q->the_post();

                // the get_permalink() function won't work without switch_to_blog()
                // you can use network_get_permalink() instead but it is a little slower
                switch_to_blog( $network_q->post->BLOG_ID );

        // Get the dates
        $start_date=get_post_meta($network_q->post->ID, '_noo_event_start_date', true);
        $_start_date = gmdate("d.m.Y", $start_date);

        $end_date=get_post_meta($network_q->post->ID, '_noo_event_end_date', true);
        $_end_date = gmdate("d.m.Y", $end_date);


                // you can obtain the post title from $network_q->post object
                echo '<div class="all_events_item post-' . $network_q->post->ID . ' blog-' . $network_q->post->BLOG_ID . '">
                    <div class="all_events_img">
                        <a href="' . get_permalink( $network_q->post->ID ) . '">
                            '.get_the_post_thumbnail( $network_q->post->ID, 'large' ).'
                        </a>
                    </div>

                    <div class="all_events_content">
                        <h2><a href="' . get_permalink( $network_q->post->ID ) . '">' . $network_q->post->post_title . '</a></h2>
                        <br />
                        <span class="start_date">'.$_start_date.'</span> - 
                        <span class="end_date">'.$_end_date.'</span>
                    </div>
                </div>';

                // restore_current_blog() to switch to the previous (!) website
                restore_current_blog();
            endwhile;

            echo '</div>';
        endif;
        network_reset_postdata(); // add it after the loop if you plan to use Network_Query multiple times on the page
}
add_shortcode('all-events', 'all_events_shortcode');

Can you give me some hints how I could tackle this problem?

Best wishes

Shortcodes should not `echo` anything, But only `return`. – Shahin Aug 19 '18 at 21:07 — Shahin, Aug 19 '18 at 21:07

Mridul Goswami · Answer 1 · 2021-10-30T08:02:37.777

Try this, it helped me. Adding ob_start(); and then ob_get_clean();

function function_name(){
  ob_start();
    
  //..your code here...
    
  $content = ob_get_clean();
  return $content;
}
    
add_shortcode('shortcode_name','function_name');

Found the solution here and tried it. It worked for me. Elementor page builder shortcode issue

Original credit: https://stackoverflow.com/a/48813883/9364624

Posted By: https://stackoverflow.com/users/1753934/colin-oakes

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 20 '18 at 07:59

You need to bind HTML in variable and then return this HTML from shortcode..

Please check the code below

function _login_popup() {

$html = '<form id="user-login-form" method="post" action="#" class="js-form-redirect js-form-action" novalidate="">
           <div class="floating-label form-group">
              <input id="useremail" name="user_name" required="" value="" type="email">
              <label for="useremail">Email</label>
           </div>
           <div class="floating-label form-group">
              <input id="userpassword" name="password" required="" value="" type="password">
              <label for="userpassword">Password</label>
           </div>
           <div class="o-form__buttons text-right --small-center">
              <button type="submit" id="submit_login" class="a-button-form --save a-no-before" value="edit">Sign in</button>
           </div>
  </form>';
return $html;
}
add_shortcode('yg-login-popup', '_login_popup');

In this shotcode i have created login form..

Elementor breaks site with custom shortcode

2 Answers2