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Troubleshooting Common Twenty Eleven Theme Menu and Navigation Issues

25 threads Sep 17, 2025 Theme → Twenty eleven

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Many users of the classic Twenty Eleven theme encounter challenges when customizing their site's navigation. Based on common community reports, this guide addresses the most frequent menu-related problems and their solutions.

Common Issues and Solutions

1. Changing the Default Navigation from Pages to Categories

Problem: The default navigation displays pages, but you want to show a list of categories instead.

Solution: The most effective method is to use WordPress's built-in Custom Menu feature. Navigate to Appearance > Menus in your WordPress dashboard. Create a new custom menu and add your desired categories to it. Then, assign this new menu as your Primary Navigation, often found in the 'Theme Locations' box. This approach avoids the need to edit theme files directly and provides the most flexibility.

2. Menu Items Not Saving Hierarchy or Changing to 'Custom' Type

Problem: When creating sub-menus, items won't save their indented position or revert from a 'page' type to a 'custom' link after saving.

Solution: This is often a browser or plugin conflict. First, ensure you have clicked Save Menu after making changes. If the problem persists, try clearing your browser cache, using a different browser, or temporarily disabling all plugins to test for a conflict. Consistently saving your menu structure is key to making it stick.

3. Menu Items Appearing as Unclickable Text

Problem: Newly added menu items appear as plain text and are not clickable links.

Solution: This typically happens when the menu item's URL is missing or invalid. In your Appearance > Menus screen, edit the problematic menu item. Ensure the 'URL' field is filled out correctly with a valid web address (e.g., https://yoursite.com/your-page). If the item was added automatically as a page, try removing it and manually re-adding it to the menu.

4. Active Menu Highlight Not Working Correctly on Child Pages

Problem: The parent menu item does not stay highlighted (e.g., a different color) when a visitor is viewing a child or grandchild page.

Solution: The Twenty Eleven theme should handle this highlighting by default. If it's not working, it is likely being overridden by custom CSS. Use a browser inspection tool like Chrome DevTools or Firefox Developer Tools to check which CSS rules are applying the highlight. In your child theme's style.css file, you may need to add a more specific CSS rule, such as .current-page-ancestor or .current-menu-ancestor, to style the active parent item.

5. Menu Wrapping onto Two Lines

Problem: The navigation menu has enough space but wraps onto a second line anyway.

Solution: This is almost always a CSS issue. The total width of your menu items (including padding and margin) exceeds the width of their container. To fix this, you will need to adjust the CSS. Using a browser inspector is crucial here. Common fixes include:

  • Reducing the padding-left and padding-right on the #access li selector.
  • Reducing the margin between menu items.
  • Slightly reducing the font size for the menu.
  • Increasing the width of the containing #access div if your theme layout allows for it.

General Best Practices

  • Use a Child Theme: Before making any code changes, create and activate a child theme. This ensures your customizations are not overwritten when the parent theme is updated.
  • Leverage Custom Menus: The WordPress Custom Menus feature (Appearance > Menus) is powerful. Use it to create complex navigations with categories, custom links, and pages instead of editing theme files.
  • Use Browser Inspection Tools: Tools like Chrome DevTools are invaluable for identifying the CSS classes and IDs controlling your menu's appearance. This helps you write targeted CSS for your child theme.

By following these troubleshooting steps, you can resolve the majority of navigation issues in the Twenty Eleven theme and create a menu that works exactly how you need it to.

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