When you add an icon to the button in Back Button Anywhere Widget for WordPress with the fa attribute and it renders as a blank square, the Font Awesome stylesheet is almost always missing. Font Awesome is a free feature, and it is controlled in the Font Awesome section under WPFactory > Back Button.
Common symptoms #
- A blank square or unknown-character symbol appears instead of the icon.
- Text styling works, but the icon glyph does not render.
Typical causes #
- The Font Awesome library is not loaded on the page.
- Two different Font Awesome versions are loaded (from the theme, another plugin, and this plugin) and clash.
- The icon class in the shortcode is wrong.
Step-by-step fix #
- Enable Font Awesome loading: in the Font Awesome section, set Load to Yes so the stylesheet is added to your pages.
- Avoid double loading: if your theme or another plugin already loads Font Awesome, set Load to No here so only one copy loads.
- Use a valid icon class: match the version you have loaded, for example
[alg_back_button fa="fas fa-chevron-left" fa_template="%icon% Back"]. Check thefa-prefix and the exact icon name. - Clear caches and reload: flush your caching plugin and browser cache, then view the page.
- Inspect in the browser: open dev tools, reload, and check the Network tab to confirm the Font Awesome CSS and font files load without errors.
Note: the default Font Awesome URL in settings points at a Font Awesome 6 build. If you paste your own URL, make sure the icon classes you use match that version, since class names differ between major versions.
If the icon still will not load #
Fall back to a plain text label, or a CSS background image, and reach out on the Back Button Widget support forum with your Font Awesome version and the shortcode you used.
