Troubleshooting and Repair of One FSE Page Loss: From Pure Layout Template to Query Loop

This site has just completed the two-column homepage transformation of the Twenty Twenty-Five theme, referring to the previous article‘WordPress Twenty-Five Two-column Homepage Transformation: Text Blog Small Picture List Template Complete Practical Record’. After the renovation is completed, the list of articles on the homepage adopts the ‘small pictures and title’ block template, with a regular layout and a clear information level.

But then I found a problem:The bottom of the first page has disappeared.

1. Problems

On the homepage after the transformation, the article list is displayed normally, but there is no page number navigation at the bottom. Specifically:

• The first page only displays a fixed number of articles, and cannot turn pages to view earlier content;
• The pagination is not rendered at all at the front end;
• Both Chinese and English bilingual pages (polylang) have the same problem.

It can be clearly seen from the figure below that the bottom of the article list is empty, and there are no paging controls.

The investigation process

Step 1: Check the block hierarchy

Enter Appearance → Editor, open the home page template, on the leftList View (Outline)Middle Expand the block hierarchy.

The original structure is this:

📦 栏目（Columns，根目录）
   ├── 📦 栏目（Column，70%宽）
   │   └── 📦 组（Group）
   │       └── 📄 小图片与标题（区块样板）
   └── 📦 栏目（Column，30%宽）
       ├── 🔍 搜索
       ├── 📂 分类列表
       └── 📅 日历

Step 2: Locate the root cause – the sample lacks query cycle

Expand the ‘Small Pictures and Titles’ template and see the internal structure and find that,This model itself is just a pure layout template——It only contains display-type blocks such as article featured pictures, categories, article dates, article titles, abstracts, etc.There are no two core functional components of ‘Query Loop’ and ‘Pagination’.

That is to say, the template defines ‘what an article looks like’, but does not define ‘where to get the list of articles’ and ‘how to page’.

The structure at the time was roughly like this:

📦 小图片和标题（区块样板）
   ├── 📄 栏目（两栏）
   │   ├── 🖼️ 文章特色图片
   │   ├── 📂 分类目录
   │   ├── 📝 文章标题
   │   ├── 📅 文章日期
   │   └── 📄 摘要
   └── （没有查询循环，没有分页）

After this template is placed in the main column of the homepage 70%, although the article can be displayed (because WordPress will inherit the main query by default), but because there is no explicit ‘query loop’ package,The paging function cannot be activated.

The solution

Core Action: Add a query loop inside the template

Manually add the Query Loop block inside the ‘Small Pictures and Headings’ template.

After adding a query loop, itDefault comes withThree subcomponents:

• Post template – Define the presentation style of each article;
• Pagination – Automatically generate page number navigation;
• No results – what is displayed when there is no article.

Then put the original content blocks of the templates (specialty pictures, categories, titles, article dates, abstracts, etc.) of the templateDrag and drop all into the ‘Article Template’, replace the default example content.

Correct structure after adjustment

📦 栏目（Columns，根目录）
   ├── 📦 栏目（Column，70%宽）
   │   └── 📦 小图片和标题（区块样板）
   │       ├── 📄 查询循环（手动添加）  ← 新增，自带分页
   │       │   ├── 📄 文章模板
   │       │   │   ├── 🖼️ 文章特色图片
   │       │   │   ├── 📂 分类目录
   │       │   │   ├── 📝 文章标题
   │       │   │   ├── 📅 文章日期
   │       │   │   └── 📄 摘要
   │       │   ├── 📄 分页（查询循环自带）
   │       │   └── 📄 无结果（查询循环自带）
   └── 📦 栏目（Column，30%宽）
       ├── 🔍 搜索
       ├── 📂 分类列表
       └── 📅 日历

After saving the template, the paging was restored immediately. But the default paging style is relatively simple, that is, a simple number link.

Four, paging style fine-tuning

After the pagination recovery, several styles of the paging block have been adjusted in the editor:

• Font size: Slightly enlarge to improve readability;
• Colour: Adjusted to match the theme color of the site;
• Spacing: Increase the upper and lower margins, so that there is a clearer visual separation between the paging area and the article list;
• display: Select the ‘Numbers’ style to clearly display the total number of pages.

Although the adjusted paging effect is not gorgeous, it is exquisite enough to coordinate with the overall style.

5. Summarize and experience

The root cause of this paging loss:

The ‘Small Pictures and Titles’ template is just a pure layout template and does not include query loops. Use it directly on the homepage, although the article can be displayed (inherited the main query), but the paging function will not take effect automatically. You need to manually add the ‘Query Loop’ block inside the template – it has its own page by default – and then move the content block into the ‘Article Template’, and the page is automatically restored.

This idea is applicable to all homepage remodels based on block templates. The core checking logic is the same regardless of the template name and what display blocks are included (the article featured pictures, category catalogs, article dates, titles, abstracts, etc.)

• First see if there is a ‘query loop’ inside the template;
• If not, manually add ‘Query Loop’;
• Move all the original content blocks of the template into the ‘Article Template’;
• Keep the ‘paging’ and ‘no-result’ sub-components that come with the query loop.

The old and new structures are adjusted in this way, and the page can work normally.

Several key points worth remembering:

1. Block template ≠ query loop. The preset template may only contain a layout structure, and does not necessarily have its own data query capability. If you find that the paging is missing after using the sample, first check whether there is a ‘query loop’ inside the template;
2. The query loop comes with paging by defaultAfter adding, there is no need to add additional paging blocks;
3. The paging block must be inside the query loop, leveled with the article template(The default of the query loop is such a structure, don’t mess up);
4. List view (outline) is the best tool to troubleshoot block hierarchy, which is much more accurate than dragging and dropping the naked eye in the page;
5. Number of articles per pageYou can adjust the ‘Items per page’ in the settings panel on the right side of the query loop, or in the WordPress background Settings → Read Adjust the ‘blog page at most’;
6. In the Polylang bilingual environment, as long as the query loop structure is correct, the page will automatically match the total number of articles in the corresponding language, and no additional configuration is required.

If you are also using the FSE block theme and encounter the problem that the paging is not displayed, you may wish to check it first:Is there a ‘Query Loop’ block inside the template?. That’s a high probability.