Daniel J. Lewis

Internet entrepreneur, award-winning podcaster, podcast consultant, keynote speaker

How to disable Disqus on WordPress custom post types

by 68 Comments

UPDATE: Disqus is pushing out more updates, which would mean re-implementing this code each time. Thus, I changed methods. Thanks to Onur Güven (in the comments) for pointing out the better method.

If you have custom post types on your WordPress website and use Disqus Commenting System, you may have a need to disable Disqus in only certainly places. I'll show you how!

I created a premium WordPress plugin, Social Subscribe & Follow Icons, for adding vector social icons to blog and podcast websites. Since I podcast “how-tos” about podcasting to other podcasters (I'm a meta kind of guy), I sell this plugin on The Audacity to Podcast's website. My site uses Disqus and I sell the digital product with WooCommerce.

WooCommerce (and other ecommerce plugins for WordPress) creates custom post types and may use the default WordPress comments system for managing reviews on those products. The problem is that Disqus takes over the commenting system and now disables the WordPress system. This results in a blank Reviews tab for my products on my website.

To fix the problem, we need to tell Disqus not to run on a particular post type, and let the default WordPress system take over. In the case of WooCommerce, this custom post type is “product,” but it could be any other post type in your case.

Open your theme's functions.php file and add the following code near the bottom.

// Remove Disqus from a custom post type
remove_action('pre_comment_on_post', 'dsq_pre_comment_on_post');
add_action( 'the_post' , 'block_disqus');
function block_disqus() {
    if ( get_post_type() == 'custom_post_type_name' )
        remove_filter('comments_template', 'dsq_comments_template');
}

Where custom_post_type_name is the name of your post type, like product.

Now, you can update Disqus without losing your settings! Just remember to re-implement this code if you update or switch themes.

Old method (no longer recommended)

The following instructions are for Disqus version 2.74 through 2.77 2.79. Later version will probably work the same (though line numbers may change, as they did for version 2.79).

  1. Open up the “disqus.php” file in the Disqus plugin folder (usually “/wp-content/plugins/disqus-comment-system/disqus.php”).
  2. Find line 149 143 (as of version 2.79) and you'll see the following. 
        $replace = get_option('disqus_replace');

    if ( is_feed() ) { return false; }
    if ( !isset($post) ) { return false; }
    if ( 'draft' == $post->post_status ) { return false; }
    if ( !get_option('disqus_forum_url') ) { return false; }
    else if ( 'all' == $replace ) { return true; }
  3. Add the following above the if statements. (Replace “product” with your post type, or duplicate this line to address several post types.) 
        if ( 'product' == get_post_type() )    { return false; }

    So that your code looks like the following.

        $replace = get_option('disqus_replace');

    if ( 'product' == get_post_type() )    { return false; }  
    if ( is_feed() )                       { return false; }
    if ( 'draft' == $post->post_status )   { return false; }
    if ( !get_option('disqus_forum_url') ) { return false; }
    else if ( 'all' == $replace )          { return true; }
  4. Save and re-upload the “disqus.php” file.
  5. You may need to clear your cache.

Following these steps, Disqus will be disabled on these custom post types. In my scenario, this means I can now accept product reviews in my WooCommerce store!

I've shared this post with Disqus so that they can consider including this code in the future, or building in a function to allow users to select post types.

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Comments

  1. RichTheRookie says

    You sir, are a life-saver! I’ve been searching all over for a way to fix this problem with Disqus.

    I tried what you did but found that this worked instead:

    Instead of “if ( ‘product’ == get_post_type() ) { return false; }”

    It should be: “if ( ‘product’ == $post->post_status ) { return false; }” with product being replaced with whatever your custom post is named.

    You see, I installed EditFlow which creates a couple of custom post-types, and as my writers would preview an article that wasn’t saved as a “Draft”, Disqus would activate, thus creating comment conflicts resulting in comments publishing on the wrong post.

    Thanks a million for pointing me in the right direction though. Much appreciated! 🙂

    Reply

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      Great!

      So you had a different goal than I did? Because your suggested code doesn’t work on the product post type from WooCommerce.

      However, maybe both your line and mine should be added.

      Reply

  3. David says

    Awesome find – thank you! Just to add to the comments – if I may (to help future stragglers like me):

    It seems as if you can employ most of WordPress’ native functions to test against. I had a specific category to exclude Disqus on so:

    if (is_category( ’14’ ) ) { return false; }

    also worked

    Thank you!

    Reply

  11. Onur Güven says

    Thanks, but is not the correct method.
    add the following code to your functions.php file inside your theme.

    add_filter( ‘comments_template’ , ‘block_disqus’, 1 );
    function block_disqus($file) {
    if ( ‘custom_post_type_name’ == get_post_type() )
    remove_filter(‘comments_template’, ‘dsq_comments_template’);
    return $file;

    }

    Reply

  22. tgrapher_master says

    // Remove Disqus from a custom post type

    add_filter( ‘comments_template’ , ‘block_disqus’, 1 );

    function block_disqus($file) {

    if ( ‘product’ == get_post_type() )

    remove_filter(‘comments_template’, ‘dsq_comments_template’);

    return $file;

    }

    Reply

  25. N3gATiVE says

    Code is worked but still can’t write reviews as we will click submit button it will throw error:

    Sorry, the built-in commenting system is disabled because Disqus is active.

    Reply

      • N3gATiVE says

        Using WordPress Woocommerce recent version, after applying your code Woocommerce reviews is stated showing then as we write some review and click “Submit” Review button it throws error:

        Sorry, the built-in commenting system is disabled because Disqus is active.

        Screen: http://oi59.tinypic.com/a3mdew.jpg

        Any idea or help on solving this tried to search alot but not getting any fix! and have you also notice this problem in your WooCommerce store reviews or its only me!

        Reply

  26. brain says

    i using the code. it didn’t anything worked.
    my woocommerce still can’t not read reviews.

    “custom_post_type_name” i change “tab-reviews”
    what mistake did i make?

    Reply

  28. Discount Card says

    On November 9, 2011, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducted the first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). The test was conducted at 2:00pm EST and during this period, regularly scheduled television, radio, cable, radio and satellite shows were interrupted as the system was being tested.

    Reply

  29. Product says

    On November 9, 2011, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducted the first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). The test was conducted at 2:00pm EST and during this period, regularly scheduled television, radio, cable, radio and satellite shows were interrupted as the system was being tested.

    Reply

  30. Paul Alan Clifford says

    Hope the move to AZ is going well (I’m partial to Flagstaff myself, having spend a summer at the Grand Canyon).

    Anyway, thanks for the code. Seems to have worked like a charm. Now, if I can just figure out how to import all my Amazon reviews without just copying and pasting, all will be well.

    Reply

  34. Robin Neal says

    Hi, I’ve just been adding this to a site I’m currently building which uses WooCommerce and Disqus comments. I found the get_post_type() statement to be causing issues, where certain widgets were not correctly resetting the post type.
    I’ve found a more reliable technique is to use is_singular(‘POST_TYPE’). This ensures the disqus comments are only disabled when on a singular page for the specified post type.

    Reply

      • Robin Neal says

        Sorry, it’s been a little while since I was working on that so this may be a bit vague.

        In my case I wanted to only use disqus on the posts section, removing it from products. However, the_post is called on any WP_Query loop on the page. This meant that the loop in my header for the mini-basket, and the loop in the sidebars for recent products (or whatever) would also call the_post, and return true for the get_post_type(), despite the page being a singular post. This meant disqus was being removed from all pages, because there was always a post with the type of product somewhere on a page.
        is_singular(), on the other had, will only return true if it is a single post of the specified post type, thus is much more reliable. It would possibly make even more sense use a unique action, such as init or wp_head, so that you can avoid it being called twice.

        I hope this makes sense, if you want a further explanation I’ll send you an email.

        Reply

  42. Andy Globe says

    Ok, i see… In case i disable Disqus in custom post type, what happens then? Does that post stay with comments disabled? Or in that case, WP Comments are back to the page?

    Reply

    • Daniel J. Lewis says

      It’s been a long time since I used Disqus on an active site. But I believe that following these steps would disable only Disqus but leave the comments according to your WordPress settings.

      I had to do this in order to fix reviews that weren’t showing on a product because Disqus was taking over.

      Reply

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