Title: Problem creating child theme
Last modified: August 30, 2016

---

# Problem creating child theme

 *  [bsilverop](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bsilverop/)
 * (@bsilverop)
 * [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/)
 * I’m trying to create a child theme for twenty fourteen, but it doesn’t seem to
   be working. To start, I just created a directory called twentyfourteen-child 
   in my themes directory and added a style.css containing the following (only difference
   being mydomain.com has my actual domain name):
 *     ```
       /*
        Theme Name:   Twenty Fourteen Child
        Theme URI:    http://mydomain.com/wp-content/themes/twentyfourteen-child/
        Description:  Twenty Fourteen Child Theme
        Author:       My Name
        Author URI:   http://mydomain.com
        Template:     twentyfourteen
        Version:      1.0.0
        License:      GNU General Public License v2 or later
        License URI:  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
        Tags:         light, dark, two-columns, right-sidebar, responsive-layout, accessibility-ready
        Text Domain:  twentyfourteen-child
       */
       ```
   
 * I created a functions.php as follows:
 *     ```
       <?php
       add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'theme_enqueue_styles' );
       function theme_enqueue_styles() {
           wp_enqueue_style( 'parent-style', get_template_directory_uri() . '/style.css' );
           wp_enqueue_style( 'child-style',
               get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/style.css',
               array('parent-style')
           );
       }
       ```
   
 * I activated the theme and would expect no difference given there are no customizations.
   But the site is mostly destroyed with none of the content visible in the sidebars
   and links moved to the top and bottom of the page. From what I understand, I 
   don’t have to copy over any other files given any changes in my child theme will
   simply override existing files (with the exception of functions.php which will
   be added to the existing parent functions). Have I done something wrong here 
   or do others have this problem too? Thanks!

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

 *  [Luke Stacey](https://wordpress.org/support/users/daftduke/)
 * (@daftduke)
 * [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/#post-6232733)
 * Hi there!
 * I just created a child theme for Twenty Fourteen with the exact code you posted
   above and I’m not having any of the problems you mentioned.
 * You are right in thinking no other files need to be copied over when creating
   the child theme.
 * Could it perhaps be a caching problem in your browser? Might be worth clearing
   your browser’s cache and reloading a few times to make sure it’s not something
   simple.
 * If that doesn’t work could you post a link to your site and we’ll take a look
   for you.
 * I hope that helps 🙂
 * Luke the Daft Duke
 *  Thread Starter [bsilverop](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bsilverop/)
 * (@bsilverop)
 * [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/#post-6232758)
 * Thanks, I had tried that but no luck. My left sidebar has moved to the top of
   the page and most of the content on the right sidebar has moved to the bottom.
   The site is login protected since it contains private information to the club
   that it’s for. I’m not sure the best way to get you those details other than 
   maybe using the contact info on the web site linked to your user profile here?
 *  [Luke Stacey](https://wordpress.org/support/users/daftduke/)
 * (@daftduke)
 * [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/#post-6232768)
 * Hi again,
 * I can’t actually suggest that you do that (forum rules) but I have one more idea
   for you:
 * With your child theme activated go to Appearance -> Menus
 * and make sure they are set in the correct Theme Locations and click ‘Save Menu’
 * Sometimes you have to do this when changing themes.
 * Cheers,
 * Luke
 *  Thread Starter [bsilverop](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bsilverop/)
 * (@bsilverop)
 * [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/#post-6232772)
 * Thanks for the reply. It’s very strange… Like you said, the appearance locations
   were not set, however setting them back as well as re-adding/configuring all 
   my widgets just results in the content now being where it is supposed to as well
   as duplicated at the bottom of the page where it was displaying before. It seems
   this information is stored somewhere else given widgets that were missing were
   still showing at the bottom of the page (ie – Recent Posts was gone from the 
   widgets section but WAS displayed at the bottom of the page). Odd that this all
   gets reset, but thanks for pointing that out, I hadn’t even thought to check 
   there.
 *  [Luke Stacey](https://wordpress.org/support/users/daftduke/)
 * (@daftduke)
 * [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/#post-6232785)
 * Also try looking under Appearance -> Menus -> Manage Locations and make sure 
   it’s correct.
 * Failing that it’s hard to diagnose without seeing the site – perhaps a screenshot
   of the front page and your Widgets/Menu pages in the dashboard?
 *  Thread Starter [bsilverop](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bsilverop/)
 * (@bsilverop)
 * [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/#post-6232788)
 * Thanks, that all looks ok. I’m basically just trying to do this on a copy of 
   the site in a sandbox first before I do it on the live copy. Here’s a few screenshots
   if it helps, but understand it may not. The white boxes are just sections I’ve
   removed where there’s a name or something else. Normally nothing at all appears
   on the bottom of the page.
 * Thanks again,
 * [Main Page](http://picpaste.com/pics/frontpage-QXHW6pU9.1434393746.png)
 * [Bottom of the page](http://picpaste.com/pics/footer-9xxWK1AO.1434393805.png)
 *  [Luke Stacey](https://wordpress.org/support/users/daftduke/)
 * (@daftduke)
 * [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/#post-6232791)
 * That looks like there is something in the ‘Footer Widget Area’ ?
 * If so, remove it and that should sort out the bottom of the site.
 * Other than that I’m afraid I’m out of ideas. It’s too difficult to tell what 
   is going on without looking.
 *  Thread Starter [bsilverop](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bsilverop/)
 * (@bsilverop)
 * [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/#post-6232794)
 * Oops…you’re right. I’m not sure how everything got moved around like this just
   by applying the child theme, but I’ll make sure to take screenshots of current
   settings and a full backup of the live site before doing this for sure 🙂 Thanks
   again!
 *  [Luke Stacey](https://wordpress.org/support/users/daftduke/)
 * (@daftduke)
 * [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/#post-6232796)
 * Yeah, it can be confusing when you switch themes and everything’s moved around.
 * I find it’s always best to create a child-theme before you do anything to a site
   to avoid getting frustrated 🙂
 * I’m glad it’s working for you now.
 *  Thread Starter [bsilverop](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bsilverop/)
 * (@bsilverop)
 * [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/#post-6232797)
 * For sure, lesson learned. I was thinking the same when I started undoing my customizations
   to the parent theme due to conflicts once I implemented the child…”should have
   done this in the first place”, and now the menu/widget issue had me saying it
   again 🙂 Hopefully that’s it and there’s nothing else I haven’t noticed yet. 
   Thanks again!

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

The topic ‘Problem creating child theme’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://i0.wp.com/themes.svn.wordpress.org/twentyfourteen/4.5/screenshot.
   png)
 * Twenty Fourteen
 * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/theme/twentyfourteen/)
 * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/theme/twentyfourteen/active/)
 * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/theme/twentyfourteen/unresolved/)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/theme/twentyfourteen/reviews/)

## Tags

 * [child](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/child/)

 * 10 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [bsilverop](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bsilverop/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-creating-child-theme-1/#post-6232797)
 * Status: not resolved