Critical Error in frontend when updating Woodmart Core

Why I don’t think this is a third-party plugin conflict:

The fatal error happens inside woodmart-core.php itself, during the plugin-loading step of wp-settings.php (line 589) — before any other plugin’s code has executed. So no other plugin is in the call stack at the point of failure.

The failing line is a hardcoded require_once for inc/template-tags.php. I checked both the theme currently installed on the server and a fresh copy of the current Woodmart theme downloaded directly from Envato just now — in both, template-tags.php only exists inside a subfolder (inc/template-tags/template-tags.php), not directly under inc/.

This tells me woodmart-core v1.16 is still hardcoded to the old flat path, while the current theme structure expects it in the subfolder. Since Core plugin and theme are two separately versioned downloads, they drifted out of sync (theme was updated to current, Core plugin was not).

Question for support: Can you confirm the inc/template-tags.php path was moved/restructured in a theme update, and that Woodmart Core v1.18 is required to match it? I’m updating Core to 1.18 now — please let me know if there are any other companion plugins/versions I need to align as well.

`Error:

Warning: require(/…/wp-content/themes/woodmart/inc/template-tags.php): Failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /…/functions.php on line 150

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Failed opening required ‘/…/wp-content/themes/woodmart/inc/template-tags.php’ in /…/functions.php:150
Stack trace:
#0 wp-content/plugins/woodmart-core/woodmart-core.php(15): require_once()
#1 wp-settings.php(589): include_once()
#2 wp-config.php(112): require_once()
#3 wp-load.php(50): require_once()
#4 wp-blog-header.php(13): require_once()
#5 index.php(17): require()
#6 {main}

That’s exactly what I do.

Theme is up-to date. Woodmart Core at 1.16 right now. As soon as I update it to 1.18, the critical error appears.

Sorry for the delayed answer. See admin login credentials + ftp access in extra information as one time link.

Sorry, the username was wrong. Please see new login credentials in extra information. Tested and works.

I don’t see any errors?

Yes you can, but only for a very short time (10-15 min). Otherwise I have to create a staging site for you.

Thank you for letting me know. Can I update the theme to the latest version? I thought that was the whole point of the changes 😀

Thank you, looks good.

What was the bug (mentioned in the email) if I may ask?

Alright, thank you for these details.

I was already wondering why it only happens on this website and not on others. But all other clients are on shared hosting, this one is a own vps server or managed server – not sure.

Thank you for your excellent support!