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Why Your Ninja Form Isn't Displaying or Looks Broken (And How to Fix It)

71 threads Sep 10, 2025 Plugin → Ninja forms – the contact form builder that grows with you

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One of the most common issues users face with the 'Ninja Forms – The Contact Form Builder That Grows With You' plugin is forms not displaying at all or appearing with broken layouts and missing styles. This can be a frustrating experience, especially when the form works perfectly for logged-in administrators but fails for regular site visitors. Based on community reports and troubleshooting patterns, here are the most common causes and their solutions.

Why This Happens

Forms can fail to render or display incorrectly due to conflicts with other software on your site (themes or plugins), outdated plugin files, or issues with how and where the form is embedded. A frequent pattern is that a form works for logged-in users but breaks for the public, which often points to caching or conditional loading of scripts and styles.

Common Solutions

1. Perform a Conflict Check

The most common cause of form display issues is a conflict with your active theme or another plugin. This is the first and most critical step in troubleshooting.

  • How to do it: Temporarily deactivate all plugins except for Ninja Forms. Then, switch your theme to a default WordPress theme like Twenty Twenty-One or Twenty Twenty-Two.
  • Important: To avoid disrupting your live site for visitors, use the Health Check plugin. It allows you to troubleshoot in a special mode that only affects your user session.
  • If the form appears correctly after these changes, reactivate your theme and plugins one by one, checking the form after each activation, to identify the culprit.

2. Clear All Caching

If your form displays correctly for logged-in users but not for visitors, caching is a likely suspect. Caching plugins, server-side caching, or browser cache can serve an old version of the page that lacks the necessary form scripts or styles.

  • Clear your browser's cache and cookies.
  • Clear any caching from your WordPress plugin (e.g., WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache).
  • If you use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) like Cloudflare, clear its cache as well.
  • Contact your web host to clear any server-level object cache if the problem persists.

3. Ensure the Plugin is Updated

Occasionally, a specific version of the plugin may contain a bug that causes display issues. The 'Ninja Forms – The Contact Form Builder That Grows With You' team regularly releases updates to fix known problems.

  • Navigate to your WordPress Dashboard > Plugins.
  • Check if Ninja Forms is up to date. If an update is available, update it and check your form again.

4. Verify the Form's Shortcode and Placement

Sometimes, the issue is not with the form itself but with how it's been added to the page.

  • Ensure you have used the correct shortcode (e.g., [ninja_form id=1]).
  • If you pasted the shortcode using a visual page builder, ensure it was inserted as raw text/shortcode and not accidentally wrapped in an HTML link tag, which can cause the page to jump and interfere with display.
  • If embedding the form within a slider or popup, confirm that the third-party tool is compatible and correctly processing the shortcode. You may need to consult the support for that specific tool (e.g., Revolution Slider, Popup Maker).

5. Check for JavaScript Errors

Forms rely heavily on JavaScript. An error from another script on the page can halt all subsequent JavaScript, preventing the form from rendering.

  • Open your browser's developer tools (F12).
  • Go to the 'Console' tab.
  • Load the page with the broken form and look for any red error messages. These errors can often point to the conflicting theme or plugin.

When to Seek Further Help

If you have worked through all these steps and your form is still not displaying, the issue may be more complex. The problem could be related to a specific add-on, a deeply embedded theme conflict, or a server configuration. In these cases, detailed debugging is required. Users have reported that reaching out for more specific, one-on-one troubleshooting can be necessary for resolving persistent and complex issues.

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