Pagination Issue on Wordpress - wordpress

Question

There are plenty of questions regarding pagination... I've poured through them, and put together the following code (see below). The problem: Some category pages aren't showing any results (a category with only 3 posts). Other's aren't showing all of the posts in that category (one category has 80 posts, but are only showing 60)...
Below is my code...
On my category.php page...
<?php
$currCat = get_category(get_query_var('cat'));
$cat_name = $currCat->name;
$cat_id = get_cat_ID( $cat_name ); // Get cat ID
$paged = ( get_query_var( 'paged' ) ) ? get_query_var( 'paged' ) : 1;
$args = array(
'meta_key' => 'ratings_average', // WP-Rating Plugin Rating Value
'orderby' => 'meta_value_num',
'order' => 'DESC',
'cat' => $cat_id,
'posts_per_page' => 10,
'paged' => $paged,
);
$wp_query = new WP_Query( $args );
if ( $wp_query->have_posts() ) :
while ( $wp_query->have_posts() ) : $wp_query->the_post();
get_template_part( 'entry' );
endwhile;
//Pagination
post_pagination();
else:
?>Sorry, no results at this time.<?php
endif;
?>
and on my functions.php page...
if ( ! function_exists( 'post_pagination' ) ) :
function post_pagination() {
global $wp_query;
$pager = 999999999; // need an unlikely integer
echo paginate_links( array(
'base' => str_replace( $pager, '%#%', esc_url( get_pagenum_link( $pager ) ) ),
'format' => '?paged=%#%',
'current' => max( 1, get_query_var('paged') ),
'total' => $wp_query->max_num_pages
) );
}
endif;

Answer 1

You don't have to WP query the category posts because your using the category.php file.
Category.php Loop =
<?php if(have_posts()):
while(have_posts()): the_post();
get_template_part( 'entry' );
endwhile;
wp_reset_postdata();
?>
<?php if ( function_exists('post_pagination') ) { post_pagination(); } else if ( is_paged() ) { ?>
<ul class="pagination">
<li class="older"><?php next_posts_link('<i class="glyphicon glyphicon-arrow-left"></i> ' . __('Previous', 'theme')) ?></li>
<li class="newer"><?php previous_posts_link(__('Next', 'theme') . ' <i class="glyphicon glyphicon-arrow-right"></i>') ?></li>
</ul>
<?php } ?>
Then your pagination function:
if ( ! function_exists( 'post_pagination' ) ) {
function post_pagination() {
global $wp_query;
$big = 999999999; // This needs to be an unlikely integer
$paginate_links = paginate_links( array(
'base' => str_replace( $big, '%#%', get_pagenum_link($big) ),
'current' => max( 1, get_query_var('paged') ),
'total' => $wp_query->max_num_pages,
'mid_size' => 5,
'prev_next' => True,
'prev_text' => __('<i class="fa fa-angle-double-left" aria-hidden="true"></i>'),
'next_text' => __('<i class="fa fa-angle-double-right" aria-hidden="true"></i>'),
'type' => 'list'
) );
$paginate_links = str_replace( "<ul class='page-numbers'>", "<ul class='pagination'>", $paginate_links );
$paginate_links = str_replace( "<li><span class='page-numbers current'>", "<li class='active'><a href='#'>", $paginate_links );
$paginate_links = str_replace( "</span>", "</a>", $paginate_links );
$paginate_links = preg_replace( "/\s*page-numbers/", "", $paginate_links );
// Display the pagination if more than one page is found
if ( $paginate_links ) {
echo $paginate_links;
}
}
}
The post limit will come from what you set in your reading settings, hope it helps