Module does not appear: Confirm the module is published, assigned to the current menu item, placed in an existing template position, and visible to the current access level.
No articles appear: Check publish state, categories, language, access level, and publish up/down dates. Review excluded categories and article IDs on Content Source.
Category filters are missing: Confirm categories are selected and Enable Category Filter is set to Yes. Check Filters Display is not Hide filters. If Show All Filter is disabled, only selected category filters appear.
Filters button does nothing: Filters Display must be Toggle button. Confirm Filters Toggle Default and hard-refresh after saving.
Intro HTML is stripped: Set Intro Text Format to Safe HTML on Card Content. Plain text strips tags by design.
Plugin codes show on cards: Enable Strip Content Plugin Syntax on Card Content (default Yes). Cards never prepare content plugins; this only removes the raw syntax.
Images do not appear: Confirm Image Source matches where the template stores the image (intro/full vs custom field). Set Image Custom Field when using a custom source. Configure Fallback Image if needed. Clear cache after image changes.
Images disappear after clicking a tag or filter: On multilingual sites with /en/ (or similar) in the path, older versions could rewrite relative image paths under the language segment after Ajax. Update to 1.5.0+, clear cache, and hard-refresh.
Search finds titles but not intro text: Put the short description above the Read more break and set Search Scope to Title and intro. Update to 1.5.1+: earlier versions still searched the title only.
Logo looks stretched or cropped in the card image area: On Card Appearance, set Image Fit to Contain so the full logo stays visible. Cover (default) fills the frame and may crop wide or shallow images.
Tabs and Pills look the same: Hard-refresh the browser (Ctrl+F5). Tabs use an underline bar; Pills use filled chip buttons. Clear Joomla cache if needed.
AJAX loading fails: Confirm com_ajax is available, the module is enabled, and no security extension blocks AJAX. Check the browser console and network tab.
Load More page not remembered on reload: Enable Shareable Filter URLs on Filters. The URL should include scf_{moduleId}_page.
List view layout broken: Hard-refresh after switching view mode. Ensure the View Toggle AJAX refresh completes.
Sticky toolbar not working: Enable Sticky Filter Toolbar and ensure at least one filter or category control is visible. Hard-refresh after saving.
Card padding not applying: Set Card Body Padding above 0 and save. Hard-refresh. Overlay cards respect custom padding when the value is greater than 0.
Card hover still flickers with effects off: Set Image Hover Effect to None, Hover Shadow to None, and Hover Lift to 0.
Featured badge text missing: Update to 1.3.0 or later so module language files load for cards and Ajax responses.
Custom CSS does not apply: Use the {module} placeholder. Check template CSS specificity. Clear cache.
Multiple instances conflict: Each instance must have a unique module ID. URL parameters are namespaced per instance.
Search icon overlaps placeholder text: Update to 1.4.0+. Keep Disable Module CSS off so SCF toolbar styles win over template input rules. Hard-refresh after updating.
Reset button sits lower than the search and sort fields: Some templates add a bottom margin to every label, which lifts the labelled fields above the Reset control. Update to 1.4.1+, which neutralises that margin inside the toolbar. Hard-refresh after updating.
Article links look like /component/content/article/...: No published Articles menu item covers those categories, so Joomla cannot build a short link. Add one Articles menu item of type Category Blog or Category List for the parent category, with Display in Menu set to No if it should stay out of your navigation. In 1.4.2+ the Content Source tab reports this for you. SEF URLs and URL rewriting in Global Configuration do not change it, and SEF plugins that shorten menu item paths do not touch article links.
Filter URLs look long: Update to 1.4.1+, which writes only the filters that are active. To remove filter parameters altogether, set Shareable Filter URLs to No on Filters, keeping in mind that filtered views can then no longer be bookmarked or preselected by link.
Dark keyline around the first listing when opening a filter URL: Opening ?scf_143_tag=19 (or a menu link with filter parameters) used to move focus onto the first card, which made browsers draw a thick outline. That does not happen when you click a tag in the toolbar. Update to 1.4.3+, clear cache, and hard-refresh. Overlay Lead Automatically is unrelated.
Wrong language tags appear: Enable Filter by Current Language on Content Source. Set each tag Language in Components > Tags, and attach Spanish tags only to Spanish articles (and the same for English). Clear Include Tags if it was used only as a language workaround, then clear cache.
Language override key unknown: System > Global Configuration > System > Debug Language = Yes, reload the frontend, copy the constant next to the label, then create the override and turn Debug Language off.
Multi-category clicks replace instead of combining: On Filters, set Category Selection to Multiple. Single mode (default) keeps one category active at a time.
Default filters do not apply: Confirm Default Category IDs, Tag IDs, or custom field values are saved on Filters. Shareable URL parameters override unlocked defaults. Clear cache and hard-refresh.
Locked defaults still change from a shared URL: Update to 1.6.0+, confirm Lock Default Filters is Yes, clear cache, and hard-refresh. Locked category, tag, and custom field values are enforced on Ajax.
Date filter count looks wrong: Update to 1.6.0+. Date ranges are applied in SQL so Showing X of Y matches the filtered set across pages.