Recovering From Critical Error After WordPress Plugin Updates

Posted by lcleveland in for WordPress, Troubleshooting
petaled flower drawing on white egg shell

This article provides information on how to recover from critical errors after a plugin update. Critical updates can occur for a variety of reasons. These errors can take your WordPress site offline until the error is resolved.

For the purpose of this article we are going to delve into an example where a Store Locator Plus® add on is running an outdated version and the base plugin is updated to an incompatible version. While newer versions of the Store Locator Plus® plugin will auto-detect incompatible add on versions and disable them automatically, there are some third party add ons that do not report version updates properly and can prevent this auto-detection from working.

Here is how to recover from these issues.

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Geocoding stopped working suddenly

Posted by cici in Advanced, FAQ, for WordPress, General, Locations, Power Add On, Troubleshooting

(This page has been updated to reflect the changes in Google Cloud Platform API changes)

Most likely reasons;

  • You moved your site or changed the domain name and did not change your Google Map API key or , as of JUNE 2018 Google API changes, did NOT ADD BILLING TO YOUR API KEY . See Getting Started
  • Check your Google Platform Usage reports
  • A self-imposed usage cap has been exceeded.
  • The provided method of payment is no longer valid (for example, a credit card has expired).
  • You have exceeded the QPS limits for a given API.
  • If you have the Power add-on and are using the import function , your csv file is incorrect, or your header rows are not accurate,  or they have wrong field names, the columns may be misaligned and the data field for an address could not import and/or does not geocode. Check your import message log.
  • Google does not recognize an address. See FAQ post

How to validate Premier with Multi-site Installations

Posted by cici in Enterprise, for WordPress, Troubleshooting
Enroll in a Premier Subscription

Premier Subscription Licenses must be validated on the primary site of a multi-site install. This is typically the FIRST site in your site list, but can be changed via wp-config. If you are using multi site you should know which site is the primary Blog ID. Adding your Premier id and your license on your sub sites will not validate the WPSLP Premier license. (This information only applies to WordPress SLP and not MYSLP.

Communication with the SLP license server is required for any licenses to be validated. You can check if standard web requests are working between your WordPress install and SLP. This can be tested from within your PHP environment with a simple PHP script that uses a ‘curl’ or ‘file get contents ‘operation.

You can also click on the Store Locator Plus / info tab in the back end of the plug-in. If you are seeing “Latest News” with fairly current dates then the problem is most likely not a blocked communications via a firewall. In those cases the issue is most likely an incorrectly typed subscription ID or you have entered the info on the wrong site of a multi-site install.

undefined property: stdclass::$plugin

Posted by lcleveland in Troubleshooting

If you are seeing and undefined property: stdclass::$plugin in your WordPress plugin then your software is out-of-date.

For Store Locator Plus® users that means updating your entire Store Locator Plus® software stack.   That likely means purchasing the latest add-ons for WordPress.

Stop dealing with software updates and patches.   Let us manage your locator map and directory software for you with our My Store Locator Plus® managed service.

T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM

Posted by lcleveland in for WordPress, Troubleshooting

T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM is the scope resolution operator.    In most languages it is the double-colon (::).

Most people that are looking for this odd-looking word are probably running into an issue with a PHP program.   For as often as it comes up, there is very little information on what is causing the problem.

With PHP it typically means the application has a syntax error.    The PHP interpreter cannot figure out how to compile your code properly and crashes with the Unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM error message.   Often it is due to a class name or static method reference that PHP cannot handle.  Either the class name is entered incorrectly OR your PHP version is so old it cannot process variable names before the double-colon operator.

For Store Locator Plus™ users that are still using the WordPress plugins it most likely means the version of PHP you are running on your web server is very outdated.  Upgrade PHP to a newer version, preferably something that is supported in the past 5 years like PHP 7.

User that chose the fully managed Store Locator Plus™ service don’t have to worry about things like this.

Store Locator Plus Location Imports troubleshooting

Posted by lcleveland in FAQ, Troubleshooting

On  June 11, 2018  Google changed their API.  There is now a pay as you go billing requirement. You  will need to reconsider how to import, how often to import , and whether to break the list into smaller chunks , or skip geocoding.  (Or switch to the MYSLP SaaS managed service and choose the Professional or  Enterprise level plan ( restrictions apply) .

In order to perform bulk location imports with a CSV file for the WPSLP plugin you will need the Power add-on installed.  WPSLP Power add-on does not alleviate the need for you to obtain your own Google API key.  MySLP  SaaS users  do not need to obtain their own API keys but will need the Professional level plan or higher to import.

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Google Geocoding and Browser keys

Posted by cici in Advanced, FAQ, for WordPress, General, Server, Troubleshooting
This article effects the WordPress StoreLocatorPlus  users “Do it yourself ” plug-in with pay as you go Google Maps API keys

MAP Service and API Keys

Changes as of June 11, 2018 will effect the WordPress Store Locator Plus (DIY) community.  Google requires all sites  using map services to have an API key with a billing account attached. See Google Developers console.

The Browser key is used to display the map and handle user-input addresses during a location search.  The Geocoding API  is used on your WordPress server to geocode locations you’ve entered via the Google “Places” box and  APIs.  You do not need the additional geocoding “key”   unless you have added  restrictions.  You do however, need to have the geocoding API enabled in your Google projects library.

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Mixed Content Warnings and Site migration

Posted by cici in Advanced, FAQ, Support, Troubleshooting

Google’s push for all websites to be HTTPS  has been a game changer over the past few years with many companies  switching from HTTP to HTTPS with some hiccups along the way.  Some of the site transfer mishaps are minor, but if done incorrectly can cause your plug-ins to misbehave , and often is the case, after the transition team has left the building.

Mixed Content Warnings – Loading Assets Over HTTP

If you have never had HTTPS on your site, you will undoubtedly run into an issue with how your site assets are loaded. By assets we are referring to things like images, JavaScript, and even your CSS.   Insecure assets may not stop the green padlock from showing in browsers, but it will add an exclamation point warning to your users that information is being loaded insecurely.

 Site Migrations Vary

Occasionally we see comments from customers that Store locator Plus broke their site or is not working. When asked if they recently  migrated their site they often state nothing has changed.   On further investigation , or by inspecting their console  we often see the “Mixed Content warnings” quite often for images or icons from older versions of Store Locator Plus. This is a sure fire clue that there was indeed a “site migration”. They started out with their site when  the SLP plug-in was originally installed as HTTP and now , at least part of their site, is HTTPS.  This is known as  a protocol migration. If you migrate your site from HTTP to HTTPS, Google treats this as a site move with a URL change. That means you may need to obtain a new Google API key for SLP to work properly. With version SLP 4.9.15 you are allowed to add HTTP referrers now as long as you also obtain a geocode key. See  info about those changes under news

Upfront Investment

A site migration is a great opportunity to address legacy issues. If you have outdated legacy add-ons  this is a good time to invest in your future by planning for and including any  update expenses in your overall budget.  Including these costs in the project scope is the most cost-effective method to ensure your site stays relevant and on-track. When you consider that  issues that may arise after going live will require additional time , resources and, yes, may even create downtime and loss of traffic  to your site it is worth including the new versions in your budget.

Release Notes and Updates SLP 4.9.2 and above

Posted by cici in Advanced, Locations, Troubleshooting

Store Locator Plus 4.9.2  

Please check your versions on our Home site to ensure you are using the latest versions of the plug-in and add-ons.  A lot has changed since release 4.9.2.  See our News channel for latest information regarding WordPress, SLP, and Google changes. Changes to the terms for Google API  use went into effect or or about June 11, 2018.  This effected every plug-in that utilized Google APIs.  Newer Versions of  WPSLP  added fields for Google API key placement. This means, if you had been using older versions in order to keep legacy add-ons, and never added your Google MAP API key to SLP, your map will not display correctly. See News for current information

Our MySLP locator service  updates the versions for you and takes care of the Google Maps and geocode API s.  You add your locations and adjust your map look-and-feel settings– then when you are ready paste a JavaScript snippet into your website. It doesn’t even need to be running WordPress.

Store Locator Plus 4.8 and above updates will disable Legacy add-ons

Posted by cici in Advanced, FAQ, for WordPress, Support, Troubleshooting

Legacy Add-ons

The   auto-update of WordPress v 4.8.2 and above required a major update to the WP Store Locator Plus free base plug-in resulting in the end of compatibility with the popular Pro Pack , Tagalong and other Legacy add-ons.  The Legacy add-ons are no longer supported nor maintained and have been retired over the past two years as announced in news posts, blogs , changelogs, mail campaigns  and social media.  If you are not sure if your add-on is considered Legacy, see the FAQ comparison featured to Legacy add-ons

Time to invest in your future

Some of our customers were surprised by the change and retirement of the  Legacy Add-ons.  We tried to give as much of a heads up as possible using news blogs,  content news to the home site and reached out using a  Mail Chimp campaign for those most likely effected.   Ultimately, there is no sure fire method to reach the thousands of customers who may have had these older add-ons installed.  If there is one thing we know, change in the technical genre is inevitable.  The SLP support team will always endeavor to help our customers transition to the new age.  We pledge they will see real value-added from updating their site and software . Please take a moment to review the multiple benefits of utilizing the newer Experience add-on, Power add-on.

Although downgrading to an earlier version of SLP is an option, you may note that changes to the WordPress code and their security patches may disable features. Before making any changes to your site you should ensure you are backing up your site WP database and files.  It is very important to take this step before you have issues or worse, site crashes.    WordPress security has become more robust over the years.

For more information please see this important message from the author:

Store locator Plus  updates and retired add-ons