Troubleshooting: News Story Not Displaying as Expected on Subscribing Site

If a news story isn't displaying as expected on a subscribing site, use the steps below to identify and resolve common display issues.

A subscribing site is any site on the SiteMasonry CMS platform to which Content Central exports news stories, profiles, and program pages.

Confirm the News Story Exported to the Subscribing Site

There are two ways to check whether a news story has exported successfully to a subscribing site.

From the news story content item:

• Open the news story and select the Sync Status tab
   
• If the story has exported, green icons illustrating the export process will display on the Sync Status screen
   
• Select the icon on the right side of the screen to view the news story on the subscribing site

From the subscribing site:

• Go to the site's content list
   
• If the news story appears in the content list, it has exported successfully and is a page on the subscribing site

Scenario 1: The News Story Has Not Exported

If the news story does not appear on the subscribing site, confirm that its status is Published.

• If the status is not Published, change it to Published
   
• Select the blue Save and Push button
   
• Select the blue Push button on the confirmation screen
   
• A progress monitor will display on screen during the export attempt. A success message with green highlights indicates a successful export

If the news story still has not exported after a second Save and Push request, submit a Report an Issue form. Include the URL of the news story from Content Central in the report (for example, https://content.gmu.edu/news/your-story-title).

Scenario 2: The News Story Exported but Is Not Displaying as Expected

If the news story is on the subscribing site but is not included as expected in a News List block, first rule out a browser caching issue before investigating further.

To rule out a browser caching issue, follow one of these two paths:

Option A — Log out of the subscribing site:

• Log out of the subscribing site
   
• Clear the browser's history and cookie cache
   
• Paste the news story URL into the browser and add a cache-busting extension to the end of the URL
   
  • To create a cache-busting link, add /?= followed by any short string of letters or numbers to the end of the URL (for example, https://ccob.gmu.edu/news/your-story-title/?=test1)
     
  • The string must be unique each time — if the same string has been used before in that browser, it may return a cached version rather than a fresh one. Change the string on each attempt (for example, /?=test1, then /?=test2)

Option B — Open a private browser window:

• Open a private window in a different browser than the one currently in use
   
• Paste the news story URL into the browser and add a cache-busting extension to the end of the URL
   
  • To create a cache-busting link, add /?= followed by any short string of letters or numbers to the end of the URL (for example, https://ccob.gmu.edu/news/your-story-title/?=test1)
     
  • The string must be unique each time — if the same string has been used before in that browser, it may return a cached version rather than a fresh one. Change the string on each attempt (for example, /?=test1, then /?=test2)

Confirm the News Item / News List Block Topic Tag Match

If the page still does not display as expected after ruling out a caching issue, confirm that at least one of the news story's Topic Tags matches the Tag listed in the Topics field of the News List block on the target page.

• News story content items can carry multiple tags, separated by commas, in the Topic Tag field
   
• A News List block is configured with a single Tag and will only pull in stories with a matching Tag

Submit an Issue Report

If one of the news story's Topic Tags matches the Tag listed in the Topics field of the News List block and the news story still does not display as expected, submit a Report an Issue form. Include the following information in the report:

• The tag name listed in the news story's Topic Tag field
   
• The URL of the page on which the news story should appear
   
• The name of the News List block that should display the news story
   
• The Tag name listed in the Topics field of the News List block