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Why Your Custom Post Type UI Taxonomies Aren't Showing Up: A Troubleshooting Guide

46 threads Sep 9, 2025 Plugin → Custom post type ui

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If you've used the Custom Post Type UI plugin to create custom taxonomies, you might have run into a common frustration: they don't appear where you expect them to. Based on community support threads, this is one of the most frequent issues users encounter. This guide will walk you through the most common reasons why your taxonomies might not be displaying and how to fix them.

Common Symptoms

  • Taxonomy filter dropdowns are missing in the WordPress admin.
  • Custom terms don't show up on your archive or single post pages.
  • Archive pages for your taxonomy terms return a 404 error or show "Nothing Found".
  • Your taxonomy doesn't appear in third-party page builders like Elementor or Divi.
  • The "Show Admin Column" for your taxonomy is not visible in the post list.

1. Check Your Taxonomy Registration Settings

The first place to look is in your taxonomy settings within the Custom Post Type UI interface. Two specific settings are often overlooked:

  • Show Admin Column: This must be set to "True" for your taxonomy terms to appear as a column in your post type's list view. It is set to "False" by default.
  • Associated Post Types: Double-check that you have correctly assigned your custom taxonomy to the intended post type(s). A taxonomy will not appear on a post edit screen if it is not associated with that post type.

2. The Permalinks Refresh

This is the most common fix for 404 errors on single custom posts or taxonomy archives. Whenever you register a new post type or taxonomy, you must refresh WordPress's permalink rules.

How to do it: Navigate to Settings > Permalinks in your WordPress admin and simply click "Save Changes" without making any modifications. This flushes the rewrite rules and often resolves the issue immediately.

3. Understanding Archive Queries

By default, WordPress does not include custom post types in standard taxonomy archive queries (like category or tag pages). If you have a post type "Recipes" with a taxonomy "Cuisine," visiting the "Cuisine" archive will not show the "Recipes" posts unless you modify the main query.

This requires adding a code snippet to your theme's functions.php file to include your custom post types in these queries. The Custom Post Type UI team has documentation on this specific scenario.

4. Conflicts with Themes and Other Plugins

Your theme or other plugins might be interfering with how taxonomies are displayed.

  • Page Builders (Elementor, Divi): These tools often have their own logic for querying and displaying content. Your custom taxonomies may not appear in their dropdowns by default. You may need to consult your theme or page builder's support for how to query custom taxonomies within their system.
  • Filtering/Query Plugins: Plugins that filter posts (e.g., "Filter Everything") handle taxonomy queries themselves. If multiple term selections cause a 404, the issue likely lies with that plugin's configuration or code, not with Custom Post Type UI.
  • Caching: If you use a caching plugin (e.g., WPRocket), clear its cache after making changes to your post types or taxonomies to ensure you are seeing the latest version of your site.

5. Displaying Terms on the Front End

Custom Post Type UI registers the taxonomies, but displaying them on your website is a theme function. To output the terms of a custom taxonomy for a post, you need to use the appropriate WordPress function in your template file (e.g., single.php, archive.php).

The recommended function is get_the_term_list() or the_terms(). For example, to display terms from a taxonomy called 'brands', you would use:

<?php the_terms( $post->ID, 'brands', 'Brand: ', ', ', ' ' ); ?>

Conclusion

Most issues with taxonomies not appearing can be solved by methodically checking the settings within Custom Post Type UI, refreshing permalinks, and understanding that some functionality requires theme-level implementation. If problems persist after trying these steps, the issue may be specific to a plugin or theme conflict, which would require more targeted debugging, such as switching to a default theme temporarily to test.

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