Logical error in comment pagination settings.
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Hi,
This behavior is related to how WordPress comment pagination works.
In Settings → Discussion, there are two separate options:
- “Comments page to display by default”
This controls whether WordPress opens the first or last comment page by default. - “Comments to display at the top of each page”
This controls whether older or newer comments appear first within each comment page.
So if you want newer comments to appear first, try setting:
- Comments page to display by default: last page
- Comments to display at the top of each page: newer
With paginated comments, WordPress usually keeps the comment order consistent across pages, so the newest comments may appear on the last page depending on your settings. That is why it can feel different from a blog archive pagination system.
For WooCommerce product reviews, also check whether your theme or WooCommerce template is overriding the normal WordPress comment/review output.
If you want page 1 to always contain the newest reviews/comments and then continue to page 2, 3, 4, etc., that may require custom code or a plugin, because it is not how the default WordPress comment pagination is designed.
Hope this clarifies it.
Hello @bugun ,
I have a workaround on this problem for you. Before I let you know what that is, I should explain why you seem to be facing this problem.
WordPress is traditionally configured to display old comments first. If you however, decide to reverse the process by showing the newest comments and last page first, it is treated the same way but in reverse order. That is why the first page would show one comment and the second page would show twenty comments. Despite the reverse, WordPress still acknowledges the first page as the last page.
Please know that this is not a bug on your theme’s end but a core WordPress issue. To address this issue, you might be required to tamper with core files which can break your configuration or be lost upon an update. Modifying the theme’s function or comment file won’t help either.
The only workaround I can help you with is an Ajax feature which allows the 20 newest comments show upon post initial load. The visitor would have to click “View more Comments” to load the more comments without a page reload (Ajax is used). This would require you to update your chilld theme’s function files or the Code Snippet plugin with the PHP functions which Iwill provide.
Let me know what theme you are using, and your primary e-commerce plugin so I can assist you further on this.
Hello,
Actually, this is a very illogical error that needs to be fixed. There are 100 reviews under the product, but due to the page settings, it shows 0. (It’s very strange that this hasn’t been fixed for years!)
When I select “show all reviews,” pages with 1000 reviews never open.
The correct way is this: for example, I’ve divided it into two pages of 20 reviews each, and there are 48 reviews in total. The first page should show 20, the second 20, and the third, so the last page should show 8 reviews! In the current setup, the first page has 8 reviews, and if 12 more are added, that page will show 0 reviews. (It’s really funny that this error exists in a widely used platform like WordPress.)
Hi, jidemosaic Yes, if there’s a solution with code, please let me know. I’d like to implement it.
@bugun , while I acknowledge this is an illogical error or a bug, I would like to get this sorted out for you.
Kindly respond with your theme’s name, primary e-commerce plugin (WooCommerce or third-party) and possibly, a link to the site so this would be resolved on time.
I reproduced the bug by staging a WordPress instance on TastyWP using Posts Comment, not Products Reviews. I already got a workaround for the post comments by disabling pagination and using Ajax to load more comments =>https://prnt.sc/De2cEfjxPYZh
I would be waiting for your response so I can reproduce the bug in a product environment and give you a clean code that’ll fix it.
I can completely understand the frustration here because the current pagination logic becomes very confusing once review counts cross the page limit. From a user experience perspective, it would make far more sense if the newest comments appeared naturally on page 1 while older comments moved to later pages instead of creating partially empty first pages.
The Ajax-based workaround mentioned above honestly sounds like the most practical solution right now, especially for WooCommerce stores with high review counts where loading all comments at once can hurt performance. A “Load More Reviews” approach keeps the page faster and avoids the awkward situation where products appear to have 0 visible reviews despite having hundreds stored in the database.
For anyone researching similar WordPress pagination behavior or frontend UX fixes, you can also read more about handling dynamic comment loading and review optimization strategies.
- “Comments page to display by default”
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(@bugun)
1 month, 1 week ago
hello, I set the comments to show 20 comments using the “Break comments into pages” feature, but there is no option to show the newest comments on the first page! (show the newest ones on page 1… continue forward as 2-3-4-5-6 etc.) interestingly, the system shows the newest comments on the last page! https://prnt.sc/XJbT4Y6sVxpl
2ndly, if there are 41 comments, 1 comment appears on the first page! If there are 41 comments, shouldn’t it throw the remaining 1 comment to the last page? am I doing something wrong?
For example, with this setting, when a product reaches 100 reviews, the product page shows 0 reviews even though there are 100. We can’t understand why such an illogical thing hasn’t been fixed yet!
Can you help me?