Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting
Common Issues
Design suddenly changed after buying subscription.
Symptoms
• Split sections are not the right color.
• Folder color is incorrect or transparent.
• Back to Top arrow isn't working.
Situation
All Studio Mesa templates require Code Injection for everything to work, which is a feature that's not available on the Basic Subscription. On a trial, you get access to all features — but when you get the Basic plan, it disables Code Injection.
Solution
Upgrade from Basic Subscription → Core, Plus, or Advanced Subscriptions
Squarespace pricing, showing which plans will work with SM Templates.
Something is broken after using the Custom CSS window.
Symptoms
• CSS changes aren't working as expected.
• Custom font isn't loading properly.
• Random site features aren't working.
• Split Sections or Content Cards aren't working.
Situation
Squarespace's Custom CSS window is tiny, not very efficient, and very prone to making mistakes in (especially without realizing). If you just customized something there, like adding a custom font or changing border radius, there may be an error that's interfering with the rest of the code working — things like random characters, forgetting a ";" after a style change, or not having the closing "}" bracket at the end of a declaration. The red error at the bottom will tell you where, and what's going on. Note: The error might display the first declaration that's affected by the error, not necessarily the location of the error itself (see screenshot).
Solution
Check for errors at the bottom of the Custom CSS window and repair.
Custom CSS window showing a simple syntax error.
Bottom sections are uneditable on hover in the Editor.
Symptoms
• Top sections are fine, but bottom ones are unresponsive.
• Section in editor looks fine, but saved site appears broken.
• Hovering previous section shows following section settings.
• Can't edit a section at all on hover.
• Custom icons aren't displaying properly
Situation
This problem usually happens on templates like Parable or Retrograde that have sections with custom icons. The SVG code you paste into a Code Block to make icons work can sometimes have issues or be incomplete, which causes all the following code (the rest of the page, usually) to have issues.
Exception: The code shown as black (like the </g> or </svg> in the screenshot below) seems to work fine. Though it may not be perfectly complete, Squarespace seems to accept it — the issue is typos, random characters, or code that's red.
Solution
Double-check that all icon code is either black or green. Fix any red errors.
Code Block with both correct and incorrect code.
Contact form looks unstyled.
Symptoms
• Form inputs are unstyled or don't match.
• Incorrect input padding or horizontal alignment.
• Some parts of the form are okay, others are not.
Situation
Squarespace has substantially changed the contact form's code like 4 times in the last two years. Because I can't retroactively change template sites, sometimes the CSS used to customize in the past will conflict with what's in the latest update.
Solution
• Delete the Contact Form section within Custom CSS. The location of this will vary depending on the template you're using (⌘ + F will not work to search for it, sorry).
• Delete all code in the Page Injection for page with the form.
• Add new form styles via the Forms section in Site Styles
Extra
Squarespace still doesn't have a way to put two inputs on a single row (cringe), so you can use this code to make it work. Paste it into the Code Injection on the page with the form — the (number) in each item in the code corresponds to the input in the form. If you have more or less, simply add or remove that item from the code.
Custom CSS window & Header Code Injection windows
Contact form inputs are misaligned.
Symptoms
• Split input rows are not displaying correctly.
• Previously un-split inputs are becoming split
Situation
Squarespace is (apparently) rolling out conditional form fields, where inputs will display/hide depending on the result of the previous question. Pretty cool—except it appears to have broken some styling on forms with Custom Code. Nautilus is one template that has this styling.
Solution
In the Header Code Injection of the page with the form, remove any styling code that's currently present and replace it with the code below.
Important
This split-row styling is incompatible with conditional fields, as the new form structure is problematic for this styling. If you want to use conditional fields, remove ALL code from the Header Code Injection from the page with the form you want to use it with.
Content randomly disappears on mobile.
Symptoms
• Headings, paragraphs, or buttons disappear randomly.
• Content might show on some mobile browsers, others not.
• Mobile editor hides some content.
Situation
When Squarespace rolled out the Section Dividers feature, they did it (sloppily) in phases and left users with foundational code changes that required quick fixes to ensure sites with existing custom code didn't break (read: all of my templates). At some point, the fix that I scrambled to push out became obsolete via more substantial changes, and now it seems to cause issues of content disappearing on mobile breakpoints (very fun, thanks Squarespace).
Solution
• Simply delete the line of code outlined below and hit save.
• The exact line of this code will vary with each template — most newer copies of templates won't have this line as I've corrected it already, but older ones (pre-2023 I think) will possibly experience it.
• Make sure not to accidentally delete anything else! Reference troubleshooting point 2 above where the Custom CSS window has an error.
• It's just below the //---MESA OS---// banner, if that helps.
Custom CSS window with "Section Borders" code
Section / text colors are incorrect or broken.
Symptoms
• Split section background are broken.
• Some text blocks blend in with the background.
• Site Style colors are inconsistent with what's on published site.
Situation
Squarespace published a significant update to how color variables are handled within the platform, making the custom code used in my templates malfunction. This change affects ALL Studio Mesa templates — visit this dedicated troubleshooting page to apply the corrected code.
Site trial isn't showing a full year
Situation
To deliver templates immediately after purchase, copies of the base design must be made in advance, which shortens the time shown in the "site trial" banner. But, good news! Trials can be restarted easily and indefinitely when the counter runs out.
Solution
While in the trial site, just add "extendtrial" (no quotes) to the end of the url like so:
…squarespace.com/config/extendtrial
Site duplication isn't available
Situation
In early 2025, Squarespace removed ~300 fonts from the fonts library. Sites using those fonts suddenly became unable to be duplicated. Most Studio Mesa templates were safe, but Opponent and Handshake contained one of those discontinued fonts. I've since updated both base templates, but you can remedy yours by either:
Solution
Manually remove ALL Retired Fonts from your template to re-enable site duplication as usual.
Request a fresh copy of the template (free of charge)
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