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Fixing Common Twenty Fourteen Mobile Display Issues: Shrunk Views, Missing Content, and More

43 threads Sep 16, 2025 Theme → Twenty fourteen

Content

Many users of the Twenty Fourteen theme report a range of frustrating mobile display problems. These issues often manifest as websites appearing as a narrow, shrunken column, post content failing to display in portrait mode, or the desktop version loading on mobile devices. Based on community reports and solutions, this guide outlines the most common causes and their fixes.

Common Symptoms

  • The site appears as a thin, shrunken column on the left side of the screen on mobile devices.
  • Blog posts only show the title in portrait mode, with the full content only appearing in landscape or when the title is clicked.
  • The desktop version of the site loads on smartphones instead of the responsive mobile version.
  • Headers, images, or videos do not display correctly or are sized improperly on mobile.
  • White space appears on the right side of the screen on tablets or phones.

Why This Happens

These problems are typically not due to a core bug in the Twenty Fourteen theme itself. Instead, they are often caused by conflicts with other elements:

  • Plugin Conflicts: Plugins, especially those that modify content rendering (e.g., MathJax, fancy box plugins, table plugins), can inadvertently inject code or CSS that interferes with the theme's responsive design.
  • Custom CSS or Code: Customizations, particularly those that override the theme's default max-width properties, can break the fluid layout on smaller screens.
  • Content Width: Extremely wide content, such as very wide tables, can force the page to render at a larger width than the device's viewport, causing the shrunken appearance.
  • Child Theme Issues: Errors in a child theme's CSS can prevent mobile styles from loading correctly.

Most Common Solutions

1. Investigate and Deactivate Plugins

The first and most critical step is to rule out plugin conflicts. As seen in multiple threads, plugins are a frequent culprit.

  1. Temporarily deactivate all plugins.
  2. Check if the mobile display issue is resolved.
  3. If it is, reactivate your plugins one by one, checking the site on a mobile device after each activation, to identify the problematic plugin.
  4. Once identified, look for an alternative plugin or check its settings for a 'mobile' or 'responsive' option that needs to be enabled.

2. Add Custom CSS to Override max-width

If the site is shrunken or not stretching to full width, the issue may be related to the max-width CSS property. A widely reported solution in the community is to add the following CSS to your site using a custom CSS plugin or your child theme's style.css file.

#page {
    max-width: none;
}
#masthead {
    max-width: none;
}

This CSS removes the maximum width constraint on two key containers, often allowing them to expand to fill the mobile screen properly.

3. Force Content to Display on Mobile

For the specific issue where post content is hidden in portrait mode (only showing the title), this CSS snippet can force the content to display. Add it to your custom CSS.

@media screen and (max-width: 400px) {
   .list-view .site-content .type-post .entry-content {
      display: block;
   }
}

4. Address Table Width Issues

If you are using wide tables, they can cause the entire page layout to break on mobile. If your table plugin has a "Fixed-width table cells" or similar responsive option, enable it. Alternatively, consider using a dedicated responsive tables plugin to ensure they scale correctly on all devices.

5. Check Viewport Meta Tag

In rare cases, if the desktop version is loading on mobile, ensure your site's <head> section contains the responsive viewport meta tag. This should be present by default in Twenty Fourteen, but a plugin or customization might have removed it.

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

Conclusion

Mobile display problems in Twenty Fourteen are almost always solvable by methodically checking for conflicts and applying targeted CSS fixes. Start by disabling plugins, then proceed to test the custom CSS solutions provided by the community. Always remember to add custom code to a child theme or a CSS manager plugin to prevent your changes from being overwritten during theme updates.

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