Archive for September, 2009

While working on a Wordpress project this weekend, came across this error message as I was implementing a custom home.php file into a template built by my client's previous developer:

"Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at D:wp-includesgeneral-template.php:269) in D:wp-includespluggable.php on line 861"

After doing quite a bit of research, most of which turned out not helpful, I thought I would post my solution and what I found to be causing the problem for my specific case. Despite what anyone who has done just a bit of research with the "Warning: Cannot modify header information . . . ' error might think, it was NOT unnecessary white space in the referenced PHP file. Nor was it an issue I could resolve by altering the 'output-buffering' in the php.ini file because I do not have permission to do so with the host. Therefore, it took a bit more investigation to get to the source.

There were two specific details I noticed that helped me narrow down the problem. First, the error message was received on ALL browsers and operating systems EXCEPT the one browser on my iMac in which I was using to log into the Wordpress account. Second, if I removed any mention of '&showpost' from my 'query_post' in the home.php file, I no longer received the error message. Also, when I removed the custom home.php file and only used the index.php file, the error once again disappeared.

After a significant chuck of time reading through all the initial settings established by the previous developer, I found the error to be a result of the Member Access Plugin that is installed. Under Post Settings, 'By default, only members can view posts' had been enabled (even though the client decided to not require memberships to view the site). By disabling this setting, my problem disappeared and the custom home page works as expected. Perhaps the biggest clue was in fact the ability for the code to function with the browser in which I was logged into Wordpress.

While I have not further experimented with the combination of the Member Access Plugin with custom showpost settings, if my client were to require memberships for select posts, my first idea would be exclude the category (or posts) requiring membership from the home.php query.

Hope this helps anyone else with the same or similar error message!