Title: Page preview using incorrect page template
Last modified: April 15, 2026

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# Page preview using incorrect page template

 *  Resolved [adamfoale](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamfoale/)
 * (@adamfoale)
 * [1 week, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/page-preview-using-incorrect-page-template/)
 * I have a very annoying problem at the moment with page previewing in WordPress
   with the edit flow plugin active.  The preview function works, but it is not 
   using the correct page template when doing so – which means my conditional ACF
   content blocks don’t display either.  If I disable Edit Flow, it works as expected.
   My templates are filename based, i.e. page-slug.php
 * Has anyone come across this? Any ideas that might help me?

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

 *  Plugin Contributor [Gary Jones](https://wordpress.org/support/users/garyj/)
 * (@garyj)
 * [1 week, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/page-preview-using-incorrect-page-template/#post-18880678)
 * Can you please give me some more information to replicate it? What URLs are you
   trying to view? What template do you think should be being used? What template
   is being used? What versions of WP and Edit Flow and ACF are you using?
 *  Thread Starter [adamfoale](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamfoale/)
 * (@adamfoale)
 * [1 week, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/page-preview-using-incorrect-page-template/#post-18880719)
 * Hi Gary. Thanks for your reply. I can’t give you a URL because the page is in
   Draft on a heavily visited site and the client won’t publish until she can see
   the preview correctly. I’m testing on my local version and disabling Edit Flow
   makes the preview behave and pick the correct template file. On my local version
   it correctly uses page-slug.php within the render loop, on the live version it
   uses the default page.php template.
 * To recreate, create a file based template, such as _page-my-test-page.php_ in
   the theme folder with some obvious markup (like <h1>TEST</h1>), then create a
   page with the slug of “_my-test-page_“, with a status of Draft and then preview
   the page using WordPress’ built in preview function: i.e. “Preview in new tab”
   from the edit screen. The extended post status value doesn’t seem to make a difference.
 * WP version 6.9.1, ACF version 6.7.0.2, Edit Flow version 0.10.3
 *  Thread Starter [adamfoale](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamfoale/)
 * (@adamfoale)
 * [2 days, 10 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/page-preview-using-incorrect-page-template/#post-18886327)
 * Hi [@garyj](https://wordpress.org/support/users/garyj/) , have you had a chance
   to look at this yet?
 *  Thread Starter [adamfoale](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamfoale/)
 * (@adamfoale)
 * [2 days, 8 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/page-preview-using-incorrect-page-template/#post-18886418)
 * [@garyj](https://wordpress.org/support/users/garyj/) , no need to look further
   into this. I have found the most bizarre quirk in WordPress that I’ve ever seen
   in 20 years of development. My page was showing the correct slug value on the
   main page edit screen, i.e. “my-test-page”, but under “Quick Edit” on the main“
   Pages” screen, the slug was blank. I have absolutely no idea how that’s even 
   possible, or why on my local machine disabling Edit Flow fixed it. Sorry to have
   bothered you. I’m off for a very stiff drink.
 *  Plugin Contributor [Gary Jones](https://wordpress.org/support/users/garyj/)
 * (@garyj)
 * [2 days, 5 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/page-preview-using-incorrect-page-template/#post-18886622)
 * Hi [@adamfoale](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamfoale/) — thanks for 
   the update, glad you got to the bottom of it, and sorry for the detour. For what
   it’s worth, your “bizarre quirk” is very likely Edit Flow’s doing, and your instinct
   that disabling it fixed things locally was correct.
 * Edit Flow deliberately keeps `post_name` empty for posts and pages that hold 
   a custom status, to stop WordPress baking a public slug into drafts that aren’t
   ready to publish. The side-effect is that WordPress’s template hierarchy needs`
   post_name` to resolve `page-{slug}.php`, so with an empty slug it falls back 
   to `page.php`. That also explains why Quick Edit showed the slug as blank on 
   the live site — a save path that didn’t re-send `post_name` would have wiped 
   it.
 * . Enjoy the stiff drink — well-earned.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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## Tags

 * [page](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/page/)
 * [preview](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/preview/)
 * [template](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/template/)

 * 5 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Gary Jones](https://wordpress.org/support/users/garyj/)
 * Last activity: [2 days, 5 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/page-preview-using-incorrect-page-template/#post-18886622)
 * Status: resolved