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Troubleshooting Common Spectra Post Grid Block Issues

43 threads Sep 10, 2025 Plugin → Spectra gutenberg blocks – website builder for the block editor

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The Spectra Post Grid block is a powerful tool for displaying your content dynamically. However, like any complex feature, users can sometimes encounter unexpected behavior. This guide compiles the most common Post Grid issues reported by the community and provides steps to diagnose and resolve them.

1. Editor and Display Mismatches

A frequent issue is a discrepancy between how the Post Grid looks in the Gutenberg editor and how it appears on the live front-end site. This can manifest as missing margins, incorrect spacing, or alignment problems.

Why it happens: This is often related to cached or unregenerated CSS/JS assets after a plugin or theme update. The editor and the front-end can sometimes load different sets of styles.

How to fix it:

  1. Regenerate Assets: Navigate to Spectra > Settings > Asset Generation and click the Regenerate Assets button. This forces the plugin to rebuild its critical CSS and JavaScript files.
  2. Clear All Caches: Clear any caching mechanisms you have running. This includes your browser cache, any WordPress caching plugins (e.g., WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache), and server-level cache (if applicable, like Varnish or a CDN).
  3. Hard Reload the Editor: While in the Gutenberg editor, perform a hard reload (Ctrl + F5 on Windows, Cmd + Shift + R on Mac) to ensure no old scripts are being served.

2. The "Block Encountered an Error" Message

Some users report seeing the error "This block has encountered an error and cannot be previewed" in the editor after an update, though the block may still work on the front-end.

Why it happens: This is typically a compatibility issue, often between a specific version of the Spectra plugin and the WordPress core.

How to fix it:

  • Ensure both your WordPress installation and the Spectra plugin are updated to their latest stable versions. Community reports indicate this error can be resolved by updating WordPress to version 6.1.x or later.
  • If the problem persists immediately after a Spectra update, you may need to temporarily roll back to a previous stable version of the plugin while waiting for a patch. The community has noted version 2.0.14 as a stable fallback in the past.

3. Pagination and Column Alignment Problems

Pagination buttons may not center correctly, or grid columns may not maintain equal widths, especially when there are fewer items than columns.

Why it happens: These are usually CSS-related issues. The underlying grid CSS may use properties like grid-template-columns: auto auto auto; which can cause uneven columns, or the pagination container may be missing the correct justification CSS rule.

How to fix it:

  • For Pagination: Add the following Custom CSS (in the Customizer or your theme's stylesheet):
    .uagb-post-pagination-wrap { justify-content: center; }
  • For Equal Columns: This issue was acknowledged by the Spectra team. A fix should be included in a future update. Until then, you can use custom CSS to override the grid behavior for your specific use case.

4. Excerpt and Content Display Issues

Problems can include the excerpt ignoring a custom word limit, pulling in text from image captions, or displaying the full post content without its original formatting and containers.

Why it happens: Bugs in the content parsing logic can occasionally be introduced in updates. The Spectra team has a history of quickly identifying and patching these, as seen with a fix for excerpt logic in version 1.23.2.

How to fix it:

  1. First, update Spectra to the latest version. Many excerpt and content display bugs are fixed in subsequent patches.
  2. If the issue persists, test with all other plugins disabled and a default theme (like Twenty Twenty-Four) to rule out a conflict.
  3. Note that displaying the full post content exactly as it appears on the single post page, including all containers and spacing, is currently not a supported feature of the Post Grid block.

5. Images Not Loading or Displaying Incorrectly

Featured images might not load consistently, appear at the wrong size, or have unexpected gaps around them.

Why it happens: This can be caused by aggressive caching, browser-level lazy loading interference, or conflicts with other plugins that optimize images.

How to fix it:

  • Follow the caching and asset regeneration steps outlined in section 1.
  • Try temporarily disabling Lazy Loading features in Spectra, your theme, or other optimization plugins to see if that resolves the issue.
  • The 'Image Size' setting in the Post Grid block optimizes and serves the image—it does not control the intrinsic size, which can be overridden by CSS from other sources.

When to Seek Further Help

If you have tried all the general troubleshooting steps above and your issue remains, your problem may be more unique. The Spectra Gutenberg Blocks team often requests specific information to replicate issues, such as:

  • A clear screencast video showing the exact steps to reproduce the problem.
  • Whether the issue occurs with all other plugins deactivated and a default theme active.
  • The specific post grid block settings you are using.

By providing these details in a support forum, you can help the community and developers identify and solve more complex problems.

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