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Why Are My Popups Not Showing or Causing Problems? Common Issues & Fixes

34 threads Sep 16, 2025

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If you're using the Popup Maker plugin on your WordPress site, you might encounter situations where your popups don't appear, cause the page to freeze, or create other unexpected behavior. These issues are often caused by conflicts or misconfigurations rather than a problem with the plugin itself. Based on common community reports, here are the most frequent problems and how to resolve them.

1. Popup Not Showing on Specific Pages

The Problem: A popup works perfectly on one page but refuses to show up on another.

Why It Happens: This is often due to incorrect targeting conditions. The Popup Maker plugin allows you to precisely control where a popup should load. For example, a popup set to trigger based on a product's shipping class will only work on single product pages, not on the cart or checkout page. If the conditions aren't met, the popup won't display.

The Solution: Double-check your popup's targeting settings. Navigate to the popup's editor, go to the Targeting tab, and ensure the rules are set for the correct pages or conditions. The 'Popup Maker – Boost Sales, Conversions, Optins, Subscribers with the Ultimate WP Popups Builder' team suggests using the 'Pages: Selected' condition to limit a popup to specific pages, which can also improve site performance.

2. Page Freezes or Becomes Unscrollable After a Popup

The Problem: When a popup appears or is closed, the page freezes, or the scrollbar disappears, making the site unusable.

Why It Happens: This is typically a CSS or JavaScript conflict with your theme or another plugin. The conflict prevents the popup's overlay from displaying or being removed correctly, which can lock the page view.

The Solution: Try adding a small CSS snippet to override the conflict. You can add this to your theme's customizer under Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS:

.pum-overlay.pum-active,
.pum-overlay.pum-active .popmake.active {
    display: block !important;
}

If this doesn't work, follow general troubleshooting steps: disable other plugins one by one and switch to a default WordPress theme (like Twenty Twenty-Four) to identify the source of the conflict.

3. Multiple Popups Not Displaying Correctly

The Problem: You have several popups on a page, but they don't all show, or they break the site when they try to appear together.

Why It Happens: By default, the plugin is configured to handle one popup at a time smoothly. Displaying multiple popups simultaneously requires specific settings.

The Solution: To allow multiple popups to appear at once, you must enable two key settings for each popup in its Display Settings:

  • Disable Overlay: This removes the background dim for that specific popup.
  • Stackable: This allows the popup to appear alongside others instead of closing them.

Configuring these settings prevents conflicts between popups vying for attention on the same page.

4. Popup Content Appears on Every Page (SEO Concern)

The Problem: The text and content from your popups are hidden in the source code of every page, potentially causing duplicate content issues with search engines like Google.

Why It Happens: This is how the plugin operates by default for triggering purposes. However, proper targeting can mitigate this.

The Solution: The most effective solution is to use the targeting conditions to restrict popups only to the pages where they are meant to be seen by users. This prevents the popup's HTML from being loaded on irrelevant pages, cleaning up your source code and avoiding SEO pitfalls. Additionally, ensure any caching plugins are configured correctly or temporarily disabled while testing.

5. Triggering a Popup from Within Another Popup Doesn't Work

The Problem: You have a button inside a popup that is supposed to open a second popup, but nothing happens when you click it.

Why It Happens: This is a complex interaction that may require specific configuration to work reliably.

The Solution: Ensure the trigger for the second popup is correctly set up. A common method is to add the class pum-close to the triggering element inside the first popup. This will close the first popup when clicked. You can then combine this with a click open trigger for the second popup. Testing this functionality without other plugins active is recommended to rule out conflicts.

General Performance Tip: Limit Popup Loading

For better site speed, always use targeting conditions. A popup with no targeting rules will load its assets on every page of your site, which can slow things down significantly, especially if you have many popups. Only load popups where they are needed.

Most issues can be resolved by carefully reviewing your popup's settings and testing for conflicts. If problems persist after trying these steps, the broader community on forums like WordPress.org can be a great resource for finding specific solutions.

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