Noticing a few display issues with Grow, or perhaps not seeing the Grow widgets appear on your posts at all? You could be running a known plugin/feature that can conflict with Grow!
More often than not, these third-party plugins or services cause issues with Grow because they essentially do either of the following:
- In some way optimize (minify, defer, combine etc.) the Grow Script
- Or block Grow’s bots from being able to parse or scrape your website’s metadata
Read on for a list of features or plugins that may conflict with Grow, and how to help resolve each conflict!
Known Conflicts with Grow
WP Rocket’s JS Optimizations
Issue: Noticing any display or functionality issues with Grow? Such as Grow Search not being responsive, colors not displaying right, etc.
WP Rocket’s Javascript optimizations can often optimize the Grow script as well. To exclude Grow from being affected by WP Rocket, you'll want to go to the File Optimization section of WP Rocket settings.
You can exclude Grow's script by adding grow to each available Excluded Javascript Files section that is visible and click SAVE CHANGES.
Note: You only need to worry about adding these exclusions for the visible text areas.
Once you've made the necessary exclusions, make sure to clear WP Rocket's cache along with any caching plugins you have installed and you'll be all set with your plugins!
Autoptimize’s JS Optimizations
Issue: Have you installed the Grow script properly, but keep running into the “We’re having trouble seeing your script.” error in your Grow Publisher Portal?
If you’re using the Autoptimize plugin, check if you’re optimizing the Grow script with this plugin by heading to Autoptimize > Settings > JS, CSS & HTML. See if the “Optimize JavaScript Code?” is checked, as below.
If you’re running any of Autoptimize’s JS optimization settings, you may need to exclude the Grow script from being optimized by adding grow in the following field:
Once you’re done, feel free to clear all forms of caching and then attempt to verify the script in your Grow Publisher Portal again.
Speed Optimizer’s JS Optimizations
Issue: Have you installed the Grow script properly, but keep running into the “We’re having trouble seeing your script.” error in your Grow Publisher Portal?
If you’re using the Speed Optimizer/SG Optimizer plugin, check if you’re optimizing the Grow script with this plugin by heading to Speed Optimizer > Frontend > JavaScript. See if the following Combine JavaScript Files option is checked, as below.
Try disabling this feature, clearing site caching and seeing if that helps with the issue!
If you’d like to continue running this feature, consider adding a custom filter to help exclude the Grow script from this feature.
SiteGround’s AI Antibot CAPTCHA Feature
Issue: Are you trying to run Grow’s Print Pass feature, but you’re not quite seeing the right modal pop-up or are readers being redirected to your homepage when trying to print your recipe?
If you host with SiteGround, you may run into issues enabling the Grow Print Pass feature on your site. This is because your site may have the SiteGround AI Antibot CAPTCHA feature enabled that specifically conflicts with Grow’s Print Pass functionality.
We’ve attempted to work with SiteGround on this issue, but they’re unable to whitelist Grow’s Print Pass from being challenged by their AI-powered CAPTCHA feature.
For this reason, if you’d like to run Print Pass, you may need to ask SiteGround to turn off this feature for your site entirely. You can do that by creating a ticket with them within your dashboard/client area and letting them know that you’d like to disable their AI Antibot CAPTCHA feature.
You can potentially use a third-party WAF service as a viable alternative if you’d like to turn this feature off, but you can also consult SiteGround to see if they recommend any viable security settings for your specific site.
Cloudflare’s Bot Fight Mode
Issue: Not seeing your Grow widgets appear on the post? Or noticing that a specific widget is not loading in, even though you’ve configured everything correctly?
Cloudflare features a popular suite of tools for users to protect or optimize their site in different ways, but this particular Cloudflare setting can block Grow from being able to scrape/parse your posts for metadata. It is essential that Grow is able to parse this metadata, as that is what Grow uses to build your Recommended Content widgets, for example.
The conflicting setting we're looking for is called "Bot Fight Mode" and you can find it in your Cloudflare dashboard, under Security > Bots as below:
If that setting is enabled, try temporarily deactivating it to see if that corrects the issue.
If it does then it may be worth reaching out to Cloudflare to see if there is a way to prevent Grow from being blocked with this setting enabled.
Other Potential Conflicts to look out for
Optimization/Minification Plugins
Any plugin that performs any type of Javascript optimization or minification has the possibility of optimizing the Grow script, which can lead to display or functionality issues down the line.
To help troubleshoot any plugins you think may be conflicting, try disabling Javascript optimization via this plugin and see if that corrects the issue.
If it does then you may want to check and see if the optimization plugin you are using allows you to exclude certain scripts from being optimized. If it does, try adding Grow to the list of exclusions.
If you’re a Mediavine Publisher, anything that can essentially optimize the Mediavine Ad Script can also impact the Grow Script. Check out a list of general conflicts and compatibilities here to review those conflicts too!
Firewall/Security Plugins
Powerful Firewall/Security plugins can at times block Grow from being able to parse or scrape your website’s metadata. Grow essentially needs to be able to do this so that it’s able to run properly on your site!
If you suspect this is the issue, check if you’re running any Firewall/Security plugins. Then try configuring the settings, or reaching out to their support team to see if there is a way to prevent Grow from being blocked.
If your Firewall/Security has the feature, you can also try allowlisting the Grow User Agent below to see if it helps fix the issue.
MediavineMetadataParser/*