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I am using a child theme, and wish to change one of the meta boxes defined in the parent theme. The meta box is for 'pages' only. I tried using the remove_meta_box in my functions.php, but it has no effect:

function remove_parents_box() {
    remove_meta_box( 'id-of-meta-box' , 'page' , 'normal' ); 
add_action( 'admin_menu' , 'remove_parents_box' );

Any ideas?

Addition to question: I found that the parent theme uses:

add_action( 'admin_menu', 'lala_create_meta_box_page' );
add_action( 'save_post', 'lala_save_meta_data_page' );

To initiate this meta box. As I wish to create the meta-box with my own code, should I actually remove it by something like:

remove_action( 'admin_menu', 'lala_create_meta_box_page',999 );

And then create my own meta-box?

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1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Note: This is the merged version between my and @toscho answers.

Explanation (by @toscho)

Use add_meta_boxes_page as action hook.

You can find the hook in wp-admin/edit-form-advanced.php and it displays as:



Try the following action, which is inside register_post_type() as well.

function wpse59607_remove_meta_box( $callback )
add_action( 'add_meta_boxes_page', 'wpse59607_remove_meta_box', 999 );

If you know the exact position where the action, that adds the meta box is registered, you can also just remove this one.

function wpse59607_remove_meta_box()
    remove_action( 'admin_menu', 'lala_create_meta_box_page' );
add_action( '_admin_menu', 'wpse59607_remove_meta_box', 999 );
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Thank you for the brilliant answer! Note: I have continued my question. –  Nona Man Jul 25 '12 at 13:23
The two actions I mentioned are located in a file included from the functions.php. –  Nona Man Jul 25 '12 at 14:21
What is the problem with the include? –  kaiser Jul 25 '12 at 14:24
The include is for the php file with the parent theme's original add_meta_box functions, and the add_action of them which I was trying to remove. The problem is that when using the second solution, which I hoped will remove the whole original action of adding the meta-box in the parent theme, nothing happens. –  Nona Man Jul 25 '12 at 14:38
Try the updated answer. –  kaiser Jul 25 '12 at 14:43
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