expression engine: Content in channel fields don't show up on the webpage when called in a template - expressionengine

Question

I have a snippet called sidebar with the following code.
<div id="ebook_offer">
{exp:channel:entries channel="test"}
<h3>Ebook</h3>
{/exp:channel:entries}
</div>
<div id="about_blog">
{exp:channel:entries channel="blog_sidebar"}
<h3>About Obsia's Blog</h3>
{/exp:channel:entries}
</div>
<div id="testimonials">
</div>
<div id="demo" dynamic="no" limit="1">
</div>
<div id="recent posts">
{exp:channel:entries channel="blog" limit=5 offset=1}
<h3>Recent Posts</h3>
<li>{title}</li>
{/exp:channel:entries}
</div>
<div "connect">
</div>
<div = "subscribe">
{exp:mailinglist:form list="blog_list" form_id="blog_subscribe"}
<h3>Subscribe</h3>
<p>First Name <input type="text" name="first_name"="{first_name}"></p>
<p>Email <input type="text" name="email" value="{email}"></p>
<p><input type="submit" value="submit"></p>
{/exp:mailinglist:form}
</div>
This snippet is called inside the index.php template for blog template group and the code is as follows:
<div id="blog_display">
{exp:channel:entries channel="blog" limit="5"}
<h2>{title}</h2>
{author}
{if blog_images} <img src="{blog_images}" alt="blog image {title}" class="some_class" />
{/if}
{teaser}
<p>comments {comment_total} </p>
{/exp:channel:entries}
</div>
{sidebar}
I also have channel called sidebar with fields such as ebook_offer, about_blog, recast posts, testimonials, subscribe. I can get the subscribe forms to show up. I can see recent posts on my webpage but can't see any of the content that has been filled in about_blog field.
Anyone know why blog channel works but not my sidebar channel.

Answer 1

I'm not quite sure what the problem is exactly without having all of your code in front of me, but it could be a few things. For starters, if your blog homepage template has an {exp:channel:entries} tag in it, and you're including the snippet inside of that tag, you'd run into problems. You can't nest an {exp:channel:entries} inside of another.
Also, channel entry tags are set to dynamic by default. They will look at the URL for hints about what entries to pull from the database. Try adding the dynamic="no" parameter to your sidebar entries tag, which you can learn more about here. This should make the tag ignore the page's URL, which is what you want. You might also want to add the limit="1" parameter to that tag as well, to ensure that only one sidebar entry is being rendered.
Please let me know if neither of those answers help!

Answer 2

The best strategy would be to move what's in your snippet into a separate template file while you try to figure this out. I noticed a couple of things that seem off to me in your sidebar snippet code.
<div id="ebook_offer">
{exp:channel:entries channel="test"}
<h3>Ebook</h3>
{/exp:channel:entries}
</div>
<div id="about_blog">
{exp:channel:entries channel="blog_sidebar"}
<h3>About Obsia's Blog</h3>
{/exp:channel:entries}
</div>
This doesn't really seem the right way to use the {exp:channel:entries} tag. You mentioned "ebook_offer" was a channel field. But here you're using it as a static id for an HTML div. If "ebook_offer" is a field I would expect something like this:
<h3>Ebook</h3>
{exp:channel:entries channel="test"}
{ebook_offer}
{/exp:channel:entries}
Same with "about_blog"
<h3>About Obsia's Blog</h3>
{exp:channel:entries channel="blog_sidebar"}
{about_blog}
{/exp:channel:entries}
Also I noticed you said the channel was named "sidebar" but in your {exp:channel:entries} tag you're using "blog_sidebar". Which isn't the same thing, is your channel's shortcode "sidebar" or "blog_sidebar"?
Finally this is a little off to me
<div id="demo" dynamic="no" limit="1">
</div>
"dynamic" and "limit" only work on ExpressionEngine {exp:channel:entries} tags, not regular HTML elements (like DIVs). I would try using Bitmanic and Peter's suggestion again, but apply it to {exp:channel:entries} like so:
{exp:channel:entries channel="blog_sidebar" dynamic="off"}
...
{/exp:channel:entries}
If you're new to ExpressionEngine I highly recommend videos & tutorials by Ryan Ireland http://eeinsider.com/videos