Thank you for the detailed feedback — it’s really valuable!
Image in Grid: This already works with show_image=”no” — e.g. [newssync layout=”grid” show_image=”no”]. You can also use hide_image=”yes”.
Custom CSS for dark themes: You can add custom_css_class=”my-custom” to the shortcode and then target .my-custom with your own CSS. We’ll also look at improving color contrast for dark themes in a future update.
Placeholder images: Noted — we’re planning an option to disable placeholders entirely when a feed item has no image.
Feed timeout / blank page: Each feed has an 8-second timeout, but on first load with multiple shortcodes the page may wait for all feeds in sequence. Results are cached immediately after — subsequent page loads are instant. Async loading is on our roadmap for a future PRO feature.
Thanks again for taking the time!
Thread Starter
Bob
(@bobf000)
Here, “Grid” image=”no” nor hide_image=”yes” works. It keeps displaying the placeholders. In “List” it works as intended.
custom_css_class… I wasn’t aware that option existed (did I miss it in the docs?)
On my site the feed time out always occurs, also after a page-refresh when it’s in cache (or should be in).
Hi, thanks for testing so carefully — you found a real bug!
show_image="no" not working in Grid — confirmed bug, now fixed. The parameter was being passed as the string "no" which PHP treats as truthy, so the image always showed. Fixed in the next update (1.1.4, coming shortly). The correct parameter is show_image="no" (not image="no").
custom_css_class — yes, it exists but wasn’t well documented, that’s on us. You can use it like: [newssync layout="list" custom_css_class="my-dark"] and then target .my-dark .rsp-card { color: #fff; } in your theme CSS. We’re also adding automatic dark mode support via prefers-color-scheme in 1.1.4.
Feed timeout — can you tell me more? If it happens even after a page refresh (when the cache should be active), that’s unexpected — the feed should be cached and load instantly. What’s your cache duration set to in Settings?
Thread Starter
Bob
(@bobf000)
“Grid” layout hide-image=”yes” and show-image=”no” now works o.k. in 1.1.4
Timeout… It won’t do for me, even if cached. Note that the particular feed domain can’t be reached at all right now (error-404).
Thanks for quick fix. Haven’t messed with custom CSS yet.
Hi, thanks for your patience! Version 1.1.5 is now live and includes a fix specifically for this issue.
When a feed is unavailable or returns an error, DaazSync now caches that failure for 5 minutes instead of re-attempting the request on every page load. This means a single dead feed will no longer block or delay your entire page.
Please update to 1.1.5 and let me know if the timeout issue is resolved. If you’re still seeing slowness after updating, it may be worth checking whether the feed URL itself responds slowly — you can test it by visiting the URL directly in your browser.
Thread Starter
Bob
(@bobf000)
Some strange behavior. With show_image=”yes” it doesn’t seem to work. Firefox shows it tries to connect to the feed but after 6 minutes my page is still blank, not displaying any of the other feeds.
With show_image=”no” it shows the working feeds as intended but the broken feed is displaying some old, partially corrupted, info. I have no idea where that comes from but definitely not from that domain as it 404’s. Could be a left over from a previous RSS plugin I used but in that case I wonder where the info is stored and how newssync can get to it 🙂 All caches were cleaned when updating the plugin.
Hi, thanks for the detailed report — both issues are now fixed in version 1.1.6.
The 6-minute blank page: DaazSync was re-attempting the dead feed on every single page load, with the full HTTP timeout each time. v1.1.6 now caches feed failures for 5 minutes — once a dead feed is detected, it’s skipped immediately until the cool-down expires.
The “corrupted” old data: This one was interesting. WordPress has its own internal SimplePie feed cache (stored separately from DaazSync’s own cache). When you clicked “Clear Cache” in DaazSync, it was only clearing DaazSync’s own transients — WordPress’s SimplePie cache for that feed URL survived intact, still serving the old articles from when the feed was working. In v1.1.6, the Clear Cache button now also flushes WordPress’s SimplePie cache for all your registered feeds. After updating, click Clear Cache once and the ghost data will be gone.
Thread Starter
Bob
(@bobf000)
The page with feeds became a lot faster, now displaying the info almost instantly!
The old left over data from the non-working feed however is still there. Cleared all caches (newssync, litespeed & cloudflare) but it doesn’t want to go away. It has to be data collected by the old plugin I had ( https://ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/wp-rss-retriever/ ) but no idea where it is hiding.
Glad the speed issue is resolved! The leftover data is definitely not coming from DaazSync — it must be a widget, shortcode or block from the old wp-rss-retriever plugin still active somewhere on that page. Check the page/widget editor for any [wp_rss_retriever] shortcodes or RSS widgets from that plugin, and remove them. If the plugin is still installed (even deactivated), a full uninstall should clean up its data from the database.
Thread Starter
Bob
(@bobf000)
The bogus RSS data has dates included that predates my newssync install so it had to be gathered by the old plugin. That one is uninstalled and I didn’t spot any left overs in a database cleaner tool nor in PHPMyAdmin. Also checked with TorBrowser to be sure it was not stored somewhere in my regular browser somehow. Very strange.
