Troubleshooting Tips

Q: How can I fix missing or broken icons?

First, make sure you're using the latest version of the plugin.

Next, check your browser's console for errors, as this will sometimes reveal the source of the problem.

These are the most common reasons we see for broken icons:

1. An old version of the plugin's stylesheet or font files are being served.

   • If you use a WordPress caching plugin, try clearing the cache in the plugin's settings.
   • If you use a content delivery network (CDN), try clearing the cache or forcing your CDN to fetch the latest copy of your site's files.
   • If you use a reverse proxy service such as CloudFlare, try purging the cache or switching to development mode to rule out caching issues with CloudFlare.

2. Your theme modifies the order of the icons with custom code, but has not updated to use the latest glyph codes.

   • Check your theme's files (particularly functions.php) for the simple_social_default_glyphs filter, and make sure that the glyphs match these ones.

3. Your font files are not loading due to your server's HTTP access control rules.

   • This can happen if you are serving font files from a different domain to the one you see in your browser address bar, usually after moving a site between two domains, launching from a staging version, or when using a CDN.
   • You will typically see a warning about “cross-origin resource sharing” in your browser's console.
   • Go to Settings → General and make sure that your WordPress Address and Site Address are the same.
   • Make sure that you redirect the www version of your site to the non-www version (or vice-versa).
   • Allow cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) by modifying your server or CDN: http://enable-cors.org/server.html

4. You're using a custom widget area that doesn't include placeholders for ID and classname.

To use the Simple Social Icons widget in a custom widget area, you will need to make sure that you call register_sidebar with the special %1$s and %2$s placeholders for the ID and classname in the before_widget argument: https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/register_sidebar

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The following issues occur rarely, but can be worth checking for if you've already ruled out 1-4 above:

5. Your site pulls from multiple WordPress installations

   • On one occasion a user had multiple installations of WordPress in their root directory; the plugin's stylesheet was loading from their main WordPress installation, but the plugin's PHP files were loading from an old WordPress installation. If you have multiple versions of WordPress installed on your site, it can be worth cleaning them up.

6. Font files are missing or corrupt, or server permissions are set incorrectly.

   • Try reinstalling the plugin via SFTP.
   • Try setting the correct permissions on your plugin files.

7. A ModSecurity rule is preventing your font file from loading

   • If none of the tips above help, it's worth checking your server's error logs, and reviewing ModSecurity logs in case they reveal more. Your host may be able to help with this.