Magento "block within block" - trying to add newsletter and recently viewed block

Question

our site uses 1 columns layout. But thought theme 2 columns are created.

question: I am trying to add the blocks product_viewed and newsletter in right column; but this is not working. Any idea why not?

Layout.xml contains some code to call a static cms/block 'shopper_custom_right'

<cms_page_view>
        <reference name="right">
                <block type="cms/block" name="shopper_custom_right">
                <action method="setBlockId"><block_id>shopper_custom_right</block_id></action>
                </block>
        </reference>
</cms_page_view>

shopper_custom_right contains

{{block type="cms/block" block_id="storereviews"}} 
{{block type="reports/product_viewed" template="reports/product_viewed.phtml"}} 
{{block type="cms/block" block_id="last_blogs_block"}}
{{block type="core/template" template="newsletter/subscribe.phtml"}}

As a result: storereviews and last_blogs_block are showing up, but product_viewed and newsletter are not showing ....

So I tried updating layout.xml and added :

<reference name="right">
    <remove name="right.poll" />
    <action method="unsetChild"><name>catalog.compare.sidebar</name></action>
    <!-- CUSTOM -->
    <!-- <action method="unsetChild"><name>right.reports.product.viewed</name></action> -->
    <action method="unsetChild"><name>right.reports.product.compared</name></action>

    <block type="newsletter/subscribe" name="right.newsletter" template="newsletter/subscribe.phtml" after="-" />
    <block type="reports/product_viewed" name="right.reports.product.viewed" template="reports/product_viewed.phtml" after="right.newsletter" />
</reference>

But still the two blocks are NOT showing up ..... now I don't know what could be causing this: any ideas?

Answer 1

I don't see any problems in your layout update except you should use newsletter/subscribe instead of core/template block for newsletter.

I used your layout update and it's working fine as you can see.

The only difference is that I don't have storereviews and last_blogs_block static blocks. Try removing them from your cms page and see if recent products and newsletter blocks will show up.