black page = errors. There’s an error in your functions.php somewhere, I’d say.
If you;re making a *child* theme, and you place a copy of the original theme’s functions’ file in your child theme, it WILL white-out your site. Because the child is *already* pulling the functions file.
putting it in there is like putting it in there twice. hence the error. If you find your server error logs, I’m sure they’ll say “can’t redeclare and other duplicate function notices.
I can confirm that as just now made the same error. functions.php was already called duplicating the file in child theme simply attempts to redclare an include – there is a require_once() in the original.
BP ignores other default files (like header.php) when you add a custom one to a theme, but apparently not the same for functions.php.
What then is the best way to add php functions (like shortcode) to a child theme?
You can add a functions file to a child theme it just can’t have the same functions as the default one.
Any php I add to functions.php in my theme breaks the page. Has anyone added custom functions as above?
Yes. I’ve added functions to my child via functions.php. As long as the functions have unique names it won’t break anything. Something else must be wrong.
Yep, done this a lot, with BP and regular WP child theming. Should work fine if the code’s OK.
