I have a category dropdown within my searchform.php, coding within Wordpress 4.x. It has worked without issue for a couple of years.

An issue has arisen with Wordpress 5.2.

My searchform.php includes a modified form for the search and a dropdown menu for categories using wp_dropdown_categories().

get_search_form() outputs nothing.

A précis of searchform.php;

<div>
  $args = array (
  ...some arguments...
  );
  wp_dropdown_categories($args);
 <form>... search code
 ...</form>

if I remove wp_dropdown_categories() and insert it in the calling page before get_search_form() it works perfectly.

There are no PHP errors or warnings.

Whereas separating the two function calls is no problem, I am curious as to what might be happening and under what circumstances get_search_form() can fail without returning any error.

I have a category dropdown within my searchform.php, coding within Wordpress 4.x. It has worked without issue for a couple of years.

An issue has arisen with Wordpress 5.2.

My searchform.php includes a modified form for the search and a dropdown menu for categories using wp_dropdown_categories().

get_search_form() outputs nothing.

A précis of searchform.php;

<div>
  $args = array (
  ...some arguments...
  );
  wp_dropdown_categories($args);
 <form>... search code
 ...</form>

if I remove wp_dropdown_categories() and insert it in the calling page before get_search_form() it works perfectly.

There are no PHP errors or warnings.

Whereas separating the two function calls is no problem, I am curious as to what might be happening and under what circumstances get_search_form() can fail without returning any error.

• search

• ps if anyone can think of a clearer title, please feel free – Chris Pink Commented Jul 1, 2019 at 9:34
• Can you share the full code of searchform.php? – Jacob Peattie Commented Jul 1, 2019 at 9:40

1 Answer 1

It turns out the use of a variable called $args within 'searchform.php' causes the searchform to output nothing.