FAQ and troubleshooting

Answers to the questions people ask most, then what to do when something does not work as described. If your problem is not here, see Get help.

Questions

Does importing a starter site overwrite my pages or settings?

Not by default. Step 1 only adds pages, menus and images, and importing twice does not duplicate anything.

The review screen has one box, off by default, that replaces your pages with the same address instead of creating copies with a number. A replaced page keeps its address, and its previous version stays in its revisions. See Pages that already exist.

Menus are never replaced: a menu with the same name as one of yours is created as a separate menu. Your colors, fonts and front page change only when you confirm step 2, and you can undo that step.

Can I undo the second step?

Yes. Click Restore previous settings, on the Starter Sites tab or in the Status panel of the Home tab. It puts back your colors, fonts, theme options, footer widgets, front page and menu locations as they were. The imported pages, menus and images stay where they are. See Undo step 2.

What happens when I delete the Companion?

When you delete the Companion from the Plugins screen, it removes its own data:

• The restore point. After that, you can no longer undo step 2 with one click.
• Its record of the starter sites you imported.
• What it kept of an import that stopped halfway.

Your content stays on your site: the imported pages, menus and images, and the colors, fonts and theme options you applied. With Companion Pro, your property listings and projects stay in your database, and the downloaded Pro starter sites stay in the itdcompanion-demos folder of your uploads (itd-demos before Companion 1.5.0).

Deactivating the Companion does not remove anything.

Does the Companion contact any server?

The free Companion does not, to import a starter site or to show the Pro starter sites. Corporate and the pictures and descriptions of the Pro starter sites are files inside the plugin.

The only exception is Freemius, and only if you choose it: the first time you use the plugin, it asks whether you want to opt in, and you can click Skip. If you opt in, Freemius receives your name and email address, your site address and title, your WordPress and PHP versions, the site language, the plugin and SDK versions, whether the plugin is active or uninstalled, and the list of your plugins and themes, which you can switch off. See Getting started.

Companion Pro contacts the InTouchDesign package server and Freemius for the licence and the Pro starter sites. Companion Pro lists exactly what it sends.

Do I need Contact Form 7?

No, it is optional. With Contact Form 7 active, the contact form shortcode of the Pro starter sites shows a real form: [itdcompanion_contact_form] (older starter sites use [itd_contact_form], which still works with Companion Pro, see The old itd_ shortcodes). Without it, the shortcode shows an Email Us button. See Contact forms.

Troubleshooting

The Starter Sites tab says it needs the theme

The screen says “Starter Sites need the InTouchDesign theme. Activate it under Appearance → Themes, then come back.”, and the cards show Theme needed instead of Import.

Go to Appearance › Themes and activate InTouchDesign, or a child theme of it. Then open InTouchDesign › Starter Sites again. If the theme is not installed, the How to get the InTouchDesign theme link under the message opens its install steps.

Companion Pro says the same on the Dashboard, Plugins and Themes screens, with an Activate the theme button when the theme is installed. Dismiss hides that notice for your user.

A starter site says it needs a newer theme

The screen says “This demo needs a newer WordPress, PHP, theme or plugin version.” and lists, for example, “InTouchDesign theme 1.3.0 or later (this site has 1.2.0)”. Install the newer theme as Getting started describes: when WordPress says the theme is already installed, choose Replace current with uploaded. Then import again.

Homeware says it needs WooCommerce

Homeware is an online shop, so its review screen lists WooCommerce 11.0 or newer as a requirement, with an Install, Activate or Update button, and the message “Nothing was imported” if you try to go on without it. Use the button, then review the import again. WooCommerce is not part of the theme or of Companion Pro. See Starter sites that need a plugin.

The import stopped halfway

If the import stops while it uploads the images, the screen says: “The import stopped. Nothing is lost: the images already uploaded will be reused when you try again.”

Click Import content again. The images already in your media library are not uploaded twice, and the pages and menus are created once the images are all there.

If the import fails later, while it creates the pages and menus, the Companion removes what that attempt created and puts back any page it replaced. The review screen shows the error, and you can try again. See The progress bar.

Some pages got a “-2” in their address

Your site already had a page at that address, for example /about/. The import left your page as it was and created the starter site’s page at /about-2/. This is what the import does by default, and the review screen said so before you confirmed.

Both pages work. The links that the import wrote into the starter site’s pages lead to the numbered address.

To have the starter site’s pages at the plain addresses, tick the box on the review screen that replaces your pages with the same address, before you click Import content. See Pages that already exist.

The box works only before the first import. Once a starter site is imported, its pages count as “Already imported, skipped”, and importing again does not move them.

After the import, you can still change a page’s address by hand in WordPress. The links the import wrote into the starter site’s pages keep pointing at the numbered address, and WordPress does not redirect a page’s old address, so you would have to update those links too.

The contact page shows an Email Us button instead of a form

The [itdcompanion_contact_form] shortcode shows a Contact Form 7 form only when Contact Form 7 is active and has a form. Otherwise it shows an Email Us button. Install and activate Contact Form 7, and create a form if you have none: the shortcode shows your oldest form, leaving out the “Table reservation” and “Test drive request” forms that the Restaurant and CarDealer imports create.

The button opens an email to the Administration Email Address of Settings › General, unless a developer changed it with the itdcompanion_contact_mailto filter. If that address is not valid, visitors see no button at all. See Without Contact Form 7.

The reservation form of Restaurant is missing

Contact Form 7 was not active when you imported Restaurant, so the import could not create the “Table reservation” form. The Reservations page shows an Email Your Reservation button instead.

1. Install and activate Contact Form 7.
2. Go to InTouchDesign › Starter Sites and click Review import on the Restaurant card.
3. The review screen lists the “Table reservation” form. Click Import content. Everything that is already there is skipped, and the form is created.
4. On the next screen, click Keep my current settings if you do not want to apply the look again.

Restaurant is a Pro starter site, so importing it again needs an active Companion Pro licence. See Without an active licence.

The test drive form of CarDealer is missing

Contact Form 7 was not active when you imported CarDealer, so the import could not create the “Test drive request” form. The Test Drive page shows an Email Your Test Drive Request button instead.

1. Install and activate Contact Form 7.
2. Go to InTouchDesign › Starter Sites and click Review import on the CarDealer card.
3. The review screen lists the “Test drive request” form. Click Import content. Everything that is already there is skipped, and the form is created.
4. On the next screen, click Keep my current settings if you do not want to apply the look again.

CarDealer is a Pro starter site, so importing it again needs an active Companion Pro licence. See Without an active licence.

The inventory of CarDealer says “not found”

The inventory is at /inventory/, and it exists only while the vehicle inventory is switched on. Go to InTouchDesign › Modules and look at the Vehicle inventory panel, under Other Pro modules when it is off. If its button says Switch on vehicle inventory, click it. Nothing was deleted when it was switched off: the vehicles are still in your database. See Vehicles.

A Contact Form 7 form shows without its styles

While the Companion is active, Contact Form 7 loads its scripts and styles only where the Companion can see a form: in the content of a page or post ([itdcompanion_contact_form], Contact Form 7’s own shortcode or its block), in a widget of the theme’s widget areas, and, with Companion Pro, on a property listing’s page and on a vehicle’s page. See Shortcodes.

A form printed somewhere else, for example by a page builder that does not save it in the page content, or by a custom template, loads without them. A developer can tell the Companion that a page needs them with the itdcompanion_cf7_needed filter, in the functions.php file of a child theme:

add_filter( 'itdcompanion_cf7_needed', function ( $needed ) {
	return $needed || is_page( 'contact' );
} );

Replace contact with the slug of your page. Or give Contact Form 7 back its own loading, on every page, with two lines:

remove_filter( 'wpcf7_load_js', array( 'ITDCompanion_Contact_Form', 'load_assets' ) );
remove_filter( 'wpcf7_load_css', array( 'ITDCompanion_Contact_Form', 'load_assets' ) );

The Pro starter sites are not listed

Companion Pro asks the server for the list of Pro starter sites, and downloads and imports them, only while its licence is active. Without it, the tab shows only the Pro starter sites you imported, and for up to six hours the list it saved while the licence was active. Check the Status panel of the Home tab: it should say Companion Pro · licence active. See Activate your licence.

If the licence is active, click Check for new Pro starter sites above the list. When the server cannot be reached, the tab says so, for example “The server is not answering. Try again later.”, and Corporate stays available.

Get help

Write to info@intouchdesign.it. The theme and the free Companion are not listed on WordPress.org yet; once they are, their support forums there become the place to ask.

With Companion Pro, you can also write to InTouchDesign directly: click Contact Us in the InTouchDesign menu, or write to support@intouchdesign.it.

Say which versions you use: the top of the Companion screen shows them, for example “Theme 1.3.0” and “Companion 1.3.2 · Free”. Describe what you clicked, and copy the exact message the screen showed.

Before you ask, you can compare with the live demos of every starter site, and read what changed in each version on the Changelog tab.