hi community, last year we got an external developer to make a chatting function on our Shopify website. Now we want to stop this function, and he lets us delete the private App.
But when we deleted the APP, the chatting button is still functioning (it is the Facebook messenger, and we still can get a test message). Does anybody know this?
Being somewhat new to Shopify, I’ve noticed this happens a lot when uninstalling apps. They often leave a lot of junk behind. I seems like there’s plenty of forethought into the template architecture of Shopify, so it seems to me this problem might be due to either lack of proper documentation from Shopify about maintaining overall platform integrity or novice developers without much practice in engineering or systems architecture
One thing I’ve learned over the past year or so of installing and removing app I’ve wanted to try out…never just remove them without first removing all of your settings or profile details. And sometimes there are specific removal instructions that developers don’t always place front and center so you’ll know there are instructions. So, dig around a bit or inquire with the app developer directly about removal.
But blah, blah, blah - enough of that…here’s a quick, temporary solution and a real, permanent button removal solution.
Getting Started
First, you’ll need to go directly into the coded templates to make edits. They’re located under the left navigation under ONLINE STORE > THEMES. From the Themes page, click on the ACTIONS drop down menu near the top right of the page, just to the left of the green Customize button. Select EDIT CODE from the drop down. Once there you’ll see a cascade of file names on the left side of the page, and a code editor in the main screen. To find any file referenced here, your can type it’s name into the Search Files box sitting atop the file names list.
And since you didn’t provide your site url, without being able to see your site pages to get an idea of where and how this button displays, I’ll have to assume the button appears on each page of the site so my remedies here are assuming single changes will make global site impact.
Quick, Temporary Button Fix:
Easiest way to get rid of the button if it’s causing trouble with business ops and you can’t wait for a real fix: make it hidden using CSS. In the examples below, I assume your button has a class named is something like “my-chat-button”. So you’d need to do one of two things to hide this button:
{display:none;}
Then save the CSS file and open a new tab to make sure your changes took effect.
Alternatively, if you don’t find the css for the button within theme.css.liquid and are not sure where it could be, then add the following to the theme.css.liquid file - making sure that the class name “my-chat-button” used in this example is updated to instead contain your button’s actual class name before pasting it into the file.
.my-chat-button {display:none;}
Then save the CSS file and open a new tab to make sure your changes took effect.
Or, if that doesn’t work and you’re not sure where else to look…do this as a TEMPORARY measure only! Open theme.liquid (different from the css file) from within the list next to the code editor and just below the tag and the very top of the page, insert the following - again making use the class name matches that of your button before pasting it:
.my-chat-button {display:none !important;}Then open your site in a new tab and confirm that the change took effect.
Now, this is not the best practice way to remove the button, but it’s the best way to stop business disruption until you can actually get the problem resolved.
Next, the Permanent Button Removal Solution
Again, assuming a single instance of the button code inserted into a global file has the button displaying site wide, I’d first look into your site’s global header.liquid and footer.liquid files to see if the button’s code snippet appears somewhere there. If so, then test out removing it by just commenting it out first, then saving the template.
To comment out your button after finding it’s code snippet, you’d wrap the following around it. Placing the first line above the code snippet, and the second line below it.
Next, leave that coded file page open - and then open your site in a new tab to review it and see if it’s gone from all pages. If so, yay!!
You can either leave the file as is with the code commented out - but that’s messy and would drive me nuts. I’d go back and remove it completely. To do that, go back to the template code file and remove the lines starting with the first comment line you pasted into the file, all the way through the button snippet and the second comment line you pasted into the file. Once those are gone, resave the file. Then, close the tab you previously tested in before, and then clear your browser’s cache before launching a new browser tab to review the site again to be sure all is good.
If you run into any issues or mess something up, don’t worry - you can go back to the code template file you left open, and at the top of that open file, right next to the file name you should see small underlined text that reads “Older versions” and click that link. Clicking that link turns it into a drop down menu that displays the default option of “Current.” Click the drop down menu and select the most recently dated version and then click Save. Your button will be back on site, but what ever was screwed up will be fixed. Now try again.
If all that’s too daunting for your personally - and I assume you’re not asking the guy who built it for you because something went sideways with you guys - I’ll be happy to try to help if you can provide more details about your site so I can see the button in action.
Hope this helped!
hey Serrera, thanks for your detailed explanation, we deleted that javascript block in the theme code, now it is normal.
Awesome!! Glad I could be of help! 