If you get an error like this, there is a plugin or other function called in your theme which you don’t have. How do you fix this? There are a few ways: remove the code, error proof it, get the necessary plugin, or upgrade WordPress if necessary. In this quick WordPress tip post we’ll go over how to error proof these with a conditional tag and PHP function known as: function_exists.
If you get an error such as Fatal error: Call to undefined function the_title_attribute() you can simply replace any instance of the_title_attribute with the following:
<?php if (function_exists('the_title_attribute')) { the_title_attribute(); } ?>
In this case, you could also take it one step further by adding an else statement.
<?php if (function_exists('the_title_attribute')) { the_title_attribute(); } else { the_title(); } ?>
Before trying a new theme on a production site, make sure to preview your theme first, and then work out all the errors (if any).









Hi ive just used:
And it worked for that file where i was previously getting the Fatal error.
Im now trying it for 2 sidebars of my theme so that i can place them into their own .php files.
The sidebars are named leftsidebar and rightsidebar, so i use the code as above and put in get_leftsidebar and get_rightsidebar but it goes wrong somehow and the layout gets messed up, im not sure where i may be making the mistake here though, any ideas please?
Thanks
John