Title: Files added before doctype declaration, breaks other plugin functionality Last modified: August 30, 2016 --- # Files added before doctype declaration, breaks other plugin functionality * [Erica Franz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ericakfranz/) * (@ericakfranz) * [10 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/files-added-before-doctype-declaration-breaks-other-plugin-functionality/) * I’m seeing this issue fairly often on customer’s sites I’m helping troubleshoot— the minify file is added before the doctype declaration which can break functionality in other plugins. * Someone else raised the issue at [https://wordpress.org/support/topic/minified-css-and-js-files-above-the-doctype?replies=1](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/minified-css-and-js-files-above-the-doctype?replies=1) but the topic was closed without further comment. I’d like to re-open and request you investigate further. * Thanks! * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/) Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total) * [TwoBrands BV](https://wordpress.org/support/users/webworkx/) * (@webworkx) * [10 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/files-added-before-doctype-declaration-breaks-other-plugin-functionality/#post-6582081) * Today i also encountered this problem, all minified css is before the doctype declaration. * This is no valid html and causes problems. * Anybody wo had this problem or solved it in the meantime? * [Kimberly](https://wordpress.org/support/users/amiga500/) * (@amiga500) * [10 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/files-added-before-doctype-declaration-breaks-other-plugin-functionality/#post-6582082) * fascinating why it would do that. I have some hypotheses on how that might happen. But for the sake of time (to get your site working)…can you add the following directive wherever you like within your **header.php **file (obviously anywhere after the `` open tag): * ``` ``` * See if that fixes things 🙂 I feel sorry for Erica (the OP) seeing as how she posted her similar problem 2 months ago and no one responded. * Cheers Kimberly * [TwoBrands BV](https://wordpress.org/support/users/webworkx/) * (@webworkx) * [10 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/files-added-before-doctype-declaration-breaks-other-plugin-functionality/#post-6582083) * Thanks Kimberly, this seems to work. the minified css is inserted right at the place of the tag in the header.php. * Any idea what causes this effect? I manage 30+ wordpress websites and never saw this before. * Thanks! * [AJD](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ajd/) * (@ajd) * [10 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/files-added-before-doctype-declaration-breaks-other-plugin-functionality/#post-6582099) * I am seeing this same issue. The minified style-sheet is inserted before the ! DOCTYPE tag, creating invalid html… * The suggested fix did work, thanks! * AND this seems like something that shouldn’t need to be manually fixed… * Thread Starter [Erica Franz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ericakfranz/) * (@ericakfranz) * [10 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/files-added-before-doctype-declaration-breaks-other-plugin-functionality/#post-6582106) * This issue is still ongoing. * Thanks to Kimberly for the hack to work-around the issue. * I’d still like to see W3TC fix this bug on their end so users don’t need to hack their theme’s template files. 🙂 Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total) The topic ‘Files added before doctype declaration, breaks other plugin functionality’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://ps.w.org/w3-total-cache/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=1041806) * [W3 Total Cache](https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/w3-total-cache/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/w3-total-cache/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/w3-total-cache/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/w3-total-cache/reviews/) ## Tags * [doctype](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/doctype/) * 5 replies * 4 participants * Last reply from: [Erica Franz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ericakfranz/) * Last activity: [10 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/files-added-before-doctype-declaration-breaks-other-plugin-functionality/#post-6582106) * Status: not resolved