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Troubleshooting NextGEN Gallery Album and Navigation Issues After Updates

32 threads Sep 10, 2025

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Users of the 'Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes – NextGEN Gallery' plugin often report issues with albums and gallery navigation following an update. Common problems include galleries not displaying images, incorrect URLs, broken breadcrumb links, and pagination errors. This guide outlines the most frequent causes and provides step-by-step solutions to resolve them.

Common Symptoms

  • Clicking a gallery within an album shows "No images were found."
  • Next/Previous navigation buttons lead to error pages.
  • Galleries open in the wrong album context.
  • Breadcrumb links within galleries are broken.
  • Pagination appears even when it's disabled in settings.

Why This Happens

These issues are frequently caused by outdated cache files, conflicts with other plugins or themes, or bugs introduced in specific plugin versions. The 'Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes – NextGEN Gallery' team has acknowledged that some versions, particularly those after 3.41, introduced bugs affecting album routing and pagination.

Recommended Solutions

1. Clear All Caches

Cached data is a common culprit. You must clear several types of cache:

  1. NextGEN Gallery Cache: Navigate to NextGEN Gallery > Other Options > Miscellaneous and click the "Clear Image Cache" button.
  2. Site Cache: If you use a caching plugin (e.g., W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket), purge all its cache.
  3. Browser Cache: Clear your browser's cache and cookies, or test in a different browser.
  4. Server Cache (OPCache): Contact your hosting provider to clear the PHP OPCache, or use a hosting panel tool if available.

2. Reinstall the Plugin

A clean reinstall can fix corrupted files or outdated paths. This is a common first-step suggestion from the plugin's support team.

  1. Deactivate and delete the NextGEN Gallery plugin from your WordPress dashboard.
  2. Install a fresh copy of the plugin from the WordPress repository.
  3. Clear all caches again after reinstalling.

3. Check for Conflicts

A plugin or theme conflict is a very likely cause. To test for this:

  1. Temporarily deactivate all plugins except NextGEN Gallery.
  2. Switch your theme to a default WordPress theme like Twenty Twenty-Four.
  3. Check if the problem is resolved. If it is, reactivate your plugins one by one to identify the one causing the conflict. Common conflict culprits include page builders (Elementor), caching plugins, and multilingual plugins (Polylang).

4. Verify Permalink Settings

Incorrect permalink settings can break gallery URLs. Ensure your site is using a "Post name" structure.

  1. Go to Settings > Permalinks in your WordPress dashboard.
  2. Select "Post name".
  3. Click "Save Changes" without making any other modifications.

5. Temporarily Downgrade the Plugin

If the issue started immediately after an update and the above steps don't work, a known bug in the new version may be the cause. The plugin's team has sometimes advised users to temporarily downgrade to a stable version like 3.41 while they work on a fix.

  1. You can download previous versions from the Advanced View on the WordPress plugin page.
  2. Deactivate and delete your current version.
  3. Install the older version manually by uploading the ZIP file.

6. Review Gallery and Album Links

For issues where galleries open in the wrong album, manually check the gallery settings. Ensure that the page ID associated with the gallery is correctly set, often to '0', and that the gallery is assigned to the correct parent album.

When to Seek Further Help

If you have tried all these steps and the issue persists, it may be a more complex bug. You can search for your specific error message on the WordPress support forums for NextGEN Gallery to see if other users have found a workaround or if a fix is planned for an upcoming release.

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