Fix for WordPress TinyMCE Editor Problem

June 19, 2008 – 5:17 pm by coachwei | Category Tips |

If the visual editor (TinyMCE) in your newly installed Wordpress is not showing up, this maybe a solution to your problem.

  • First, Make Sure your visual editor is turned on. In the Wordpress admin, up in the upper right corner, click on your user name, and then make sure “Use the visual editor when writing” is checked.
  • Open a tab or window in a browser, and go to [your site]/wp-includes/js/tinymce/tiny_mce_config.php - if you don’t get a screen full of garbage and errors here, this post is not for you. You have a different problem.
  • If you do see a lot of garbage from the above url, it most likely mean that there is a compression related problem with your tinyMCE javascript file. The actual compression is done on the server by a file [wp-includes/js/tinymce/tiny_mce_config.php]. This file will compress the tinymce.js files (over 200kB) using gzip and save the compression result to [wp-content/uploads/js_cache] for future loading). There are various posts you will see from the web such as:

    • WP 2.5 - WYSIWIG Problem - TinyMCE does not start..
    2.5 and TinyMCE not working in visual mode
    Visual Editor Not Working on Upgrade
    2.5 Visual Editor/TinyMCE problems

    These posts suggest you modify [tiny_mce_config.php] to turn compression off as a solution to the problem.

  • What is most like causing the problem is that [tiny_mc_config.php] is actually working fine doing what it is supposed to do, but the content encoding is not set correctly when sending response to the browser. The browser doesn’t recognize that the returned content is "gzip" content.
  • The most likely cause is a configuration issue at your [php.ini] file. Find your php.ini and check to see if zlib.output_compression is set to be “off”, make sure
    zlib.output_compression = On

    • Restart your apache Http server and reload [your site]/wp-includes/js/tinymce/tiny_mce_config.php in your browser, now you should see regular javascript showing up. Then the visual editor should be working from now on.

    1. 4 Responses to “Fix for WordPress TinyMCE Editor Problem”

    2. great tip. thanks!

      By jay on Jun 21, 2008

    3. Actually, quite frankly, the commentary is more interesting messages themselves. (Not to insult the author, of course:))

      By Juliet on Nov 5, 2008

    4. I have to laugh. I’ve just spent about an hour searching for possible solutions as to why my rich editor isn’t appearing any more.

      I recall there being an option to switch it off/on, but figured it must have been removed from later versions as I couldn’t find it.

      Anyway, I tried various fixes and none worked. Then your post tells me where to find the switch… D’oh!

      Thank you for reminding us that sometimes it is worth checking things are actually switched on! :)

      By Will on Nov 16, 2008

    5. Yay! I updated wordpress and my visual editor dissapeared. Probably due to a poor upload (I have since switched my ftp program) the line about turning the visual editor on was not under admin. I didn’t even know it was supposed to be there! I reloaded, found the line, checked it and am back in business. Thanks SO much for stating the obvious first - some of us newbies need it spelled out. :)

      By Sara on Nov 27, 2008

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