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Troubleshooting Common Image and Layout Issues in Twenty Sixteen

45 threads Sep 16, 2025 Theme → Twenty sixteen

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Many users of the popular Twenty Sixteen theme encounter issues with image alignment, gallery display, and layout consistency. These problems can make a site look unprofessional and disrupt the visitor's experience. Based on community reports, this guide covers the most frequent issues and their solutions.

Common Problems and Their Causes

The issues often fall into a few key categories:

  • Image Alignment Shifts: Updates to WordPress core or the theme can sometimes change how CSS rules are applied, causing previously well-aligned landscape and portrait images to misalign (as seen in this example).
  • Gallery Display Problems: Plugins like NextGEN Gallery can have conflicts with the theme's CSS, causing images to appear clumped together without spacing, especially on mobile devices.
  • Mobile Responsiveness: Images may not resize correctly when a mobile device changes orientation from portrait to landscape, often requiring a browser refresh to display properly.
  • Layout Gaps and Spacing: Custom CSS or unexpected margin rules can create awkward gaps, push content down, or cause elements like post metadata to appear at the bottom of a post instead of the top.
  • Plugin Conflicts: JavaScript from third-party plugins (for tabs, datepickers, etc.) can break due to conflicts with the theme's scripts or styles, causing elements to appear at the top of the page or not function at all.

How to Troubleshoot and Fix These Issues

Here are the most effective steps to resolve these common problems.

1. Check for and Resolve CSS Conflicts

Misaligned images or odd spacing are frequently caused by CSS. First, try these steps:

  • Disable Custom CSS: Temporarily turn off any custom CSS you've added (in the Customizer or a plugin) to see if the problem disappears. If it does, your custom code is the culprit.
  • Inspect the Element: Use your browser's developer tools (right-click the element and select "Inspect") to identify which CSS rules are affecting it. Look for conflicting margin, padding, or float properties.
  • Use a Child Theme: For permanent fixes, always add new CSS rules to a child theme's style.css file to prevent them from being overwritten by theme updates. For example, to center a right-aligned image on mobile, you might add a media query: 
    @media (max-width: 767px) {
    .alignright {
        float: none;
        margin-left: auto;
        margin-right: auto;
        display: block;
    }
}

2. Address Mobile Responsiveness

If images don't resize on orientation change:

  • This is often a browser caching issue. While a hard refresh can work for visitors, a more robust solution is to ensure all images have the max-width: 100%; and height: auto; CSS properties, which they should by default in Twenty Sixteen.
  • If problems persist, check for plugins or custom code that might be overriding these core responsive image styles.

3. Troubleshoot Gallery Plugins

For NextGEN Gallery or other gallery plugins not displaying correctly:

  • Clear Caches: Clear any caching on your site (plugin, server, or browser cache).
  • Check Plugin Settings: Explore the gallery plugin's settings for options related to spacing, AJAX loading, or mobile display. Try different gallery templates.
  • Plugin Conflict Test: Temporarily deactivate all other plugins. If the gallery displays correctly, reactivate them one-by-one to find the conflict.

4. Isolate JavaScript and Plugin Conflicts

If embedded iframes, datepickers, or tabs are not working or are appearing in the wrong place:

  • Conflict Test: The most reliable method is to deactivate all plugins and switch to a default theme like Twenty Twenty-Four. If the problem goes away, reactivate your plugins one-by-one and finally switch back to Twenty Sixteen to identify the source of the conflict.
  • Plugin Updates: Ensure all plugins, especially the one causing the issue (e.g., Shortcodes Ultimate, LiveMesh Tabs), are updated to their latest versions, as updates often include compatibility fixes.
  • Editor Issues: For problems in the WordPress editor itself (e.g., meta boxes appearing in the wrong place), installing the Gutenberg plugin has been known to resolve these bugs.

Conclusion

Most layout and image issues in the Twenty Sixteen theme stem from CSS overrides, plugin conflicts, or changes after core updates. The troubleshooting path is usually consistent: test with all plugins disabled, remove custom CSS, and then slowly add things back to find the culprit. For persistent problems, checking the theme's official support forums can provide additional community-generated solutions.

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