Blocks display empty string for $block->subject

I can confirm I'm seeing this as well in drupal v5.3. Block titles show up in Garland but are gone in contributed themes. The code to print block titles appears to be identical in Garland and zen.

I'm trying to find solutions to this as well. I checked my db schema and confirmed that if I add a new theme and then try to add a previously-existing block to the new theme, the title field wasn't populated.

What I found, though, is that if I add new blocks in the new theme, the title field is saved correctly.

Hm, this doesn't work for me. Block subjects are still empty :-(

I'm seeing a similar problem on my site. Changing to the Zen theme, we lost some block titles. I note that the block.tpl.php template has this code:

if ($block->subject):

print $block->subject;

endif;

And, it's true that $block->subject is empty when some of my blocks are displayed. If I go an configure the block again and RESAVE it, now the $block->subject property is no longer blank.

I put some debug code in my block template just to see what properties of the $block are available.

foreach ($block as $key => $value) {
    if ($key != 'content')
        print '<br>' . $key . ':' . $value;
}

The results are:

module:block
delta:9
theme:zen_classic
status:1
weight:-8
region:right
custom:0
throttle:0
visibility:1
pages: countdown
title:StartPad Countdown Sponsors
subject:StartPad Countdown Sponsors

I don't know why there is now BOTH a $block->title and a $block->subject property (before my re-saving the block, both were empty. Other blocks on my page have an empty $block->title). Is there a Drupal bug where some themes assume the title of a block is in one property and not the other?

Hey guys,

I'm on Drupal 5.7 and I'm seeing similar issues. After changing to a new custom theme, the subject on all my sidebar blocks are missing.

I've tried searching all over the internet, finding more people having the same issues but no solution whatsoever.

This morning, I tried editing the blocks with issues (in this case "reconfiguring"). Upon saving, the subject of that particular block returns. So I proceed to reconfigure the rest, and I'm seeing them all now.

Hope this will help those with same issue as I.

If i edit and re-save the blocks (no changes made) the problem gets fixed.

Also make sure all blocks actually have a block title (and not just a description).

Subscribe

This is still happening in Drupal 6.8! I have created a theme with 3 sub themes. The $block->subject variable is empty on the sub themes! I had to open each block and save it under each sub theme for the $block->subject variable to return its proper value.

This works. But what if you have over 250 blocks? Do we need to open and save each one? Is there a way to do it with a temporary script?

I'm on Drupal 5.16.

I am having this problem and on top of it the blocks wont allow me to open and save them they throw this error error
"Please ensure that each block description is unique."

Any suggestions for working around either the original problem or the error so I can save them again?

This issue still exists in 6.10, system_initialize_theme_blocks() does not populate the title field in the blocks table when a new theme is enabled.

Patch updates system_initialize_theme_blocks() in system.module to initialize the title field when the blocks table entries are created for the newly enabled theme. Also adds a new system_update_NNNN() in system.install to populate missing titles in existing rows in the blocks table.

would definitely be nice to see this working correctly. I'm using latest 6.x release (13) and this issue is still present with custom blocks.

I would have never noticed this if I hadn't been building out a contrib theme/sub-themes as I usually don't use the block subject/title field in my normal theming.

It seems to only happen on the custom created blocks, as ALL of the system blocks, or blocks supplied by contrib modules works fine.
I can't see how it's possible this issue has been looked over for so long.

+1

The problem still exists
linksys e2000 review

Patch in comment #16 works well for me.
I created a new one though to make it compatible to Drupal 6.13.

Bugs are first fixed in the current development version to ensure that when you happen to update to that version, the bug does not return. So moving this to 7.x and marking needs work. Fixing bugs in the 6.x branch without fixing them in 7.x is calling for trouble with regressions.

Currently I do not have time and necessary knowledge to port this to D7. So hopefully someone other can jump in and remove that nasty bug.

Same problem, weird this bug is here since so long.. manually applied the patch to D6.14 (updating the number of the db update, run update.php), but still cannot pull out anything from print $block['subject'];

this is 'critical' for any project involving serious theming..

thx

PS: re-saving the blocks, turning on/off theme, clearing any cache did not help

Only deleting and recreating a block will help if you don't have this patch applied IIRC.

@fuerst: thanks, actually the update went smooth and copied correctly custom block titles in the respective tables of the patch, but still titles cannot be pulled out.. also tried to create brand new custom block but nothing.

Works fine with Views blocks, Comment blocks and others, but fails with custom ones.

I've recently stumbled across this thread, and noticed there is similarity to what I have seen. The general use case is creating a cloned theme, and switching to the new one.

Similar to patches above, I had to override system.module to ensure that the block titles were copied over. My detailed findings are in this thread:

#521668: Block Title missing on custom blocks when switching default and enabled theme

I'm having a similar problem with version 6.19.
I tried calling a block programmatically but it's not displaying the block title.
Here is code in my page.tpl.php or node.tpl.php:

<?php  
$blockTest = (object) module_invoke('block', 'block', 'view', 53);
print theme('block', $blockTest);
?> 

The block body is displayed, but not the subject.

See what reported in comment #21.

I think this bug still exists in 6.22. The #15 patch didn't fix this for me.

If I use module_invoke to get a block, and then var_dump the data, I see the content but I see no subject. For some blocks, the subject is an empty string. For other blocks, the subject isn't in the array at all. I've confirmed that the blocks have a value in the "title" column in the blocks table.

At first I thought this was my own fault--that perhaps I needed to print the block title in my theme to get it to show up at all. However, my views blocks had their titles displaying correctly. Its only my custom block, even when resaved, that won't show its block title. This is with a brand new 6.22 install and using the 'basic' theme. Hopefully this will be resolved soon. I'll try the patch above, but since it was for earlier versions of 6.x, I feel like this will be farfetched.

The problem still exists in the latest version of drupal 6.35

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