[Plugin: Advertising Manager – W3 Total Chache] Solution Delete Ads problem

After upgrading to WP 3.0.1, I discovered I’d a problem with showing some old and also some new Ads from within Advertising Manager 3.4.19. The ads which didn’t show, I did want to delete them, but after deleting them, they all came back after a few moments. I did also try to delete the Ads directly in the database record from Advertising Manager, but then also the deleted Ads came back after a while.

When searching on the internet I did found several topics on the same delete problem. In fact there are two problems:
1. Inserting an Ad with “to many” qoutes or wrongly placed single or double quotes, gives a problem with showing and deleting the Ad.
2. Delete an Ad and it still comes back after a few moments.

For the showing problem I did not find any solution, but for deleting I did. At least when you are also using W3 Total Cache!
I’ll try to explain the advanced solution and make sure when u’re trying to have a db backup, or for at least a backup of the Advertising manager record(s).
1: Clear all W3 Total Caches;
2: Disable W3 Total Cache;
3: Try to delete the desired Ad(s) in Advertising Manager List;
4: Use CTRL + F5 to give a hard refresh for the Advertising Manager List;
5: Check the Advertising Manager List if the Ad(s) are realy deleted and if they are deleted u’re lucky and finished… otherwise check further for the advanced instructions;

— ADVANCED —
6: So… the Ad(s) are not deleted. The Same ads are probably also not showing in frontend because of quote problems.
7: Login PHPMyAdmin and browse to the desired database if you are using more than one database;
8: Browse the wp_options table;
9: Look for a record with option_name “plugin_advman” and Edit this record. Be carefull because a mistake can delete all of you’re ads or your ads are not showing anymore!
10: There will be al lot of technical details, but look for your “problem” Ad name, which is something like this:

s:4:”name”;s:22:”NAME OFF YOUR OWN AD“

When found, look a bit further for something like:

“adformat”;s:6:”468×60″;s:4:”code”;s:304:”<script type=”text/javascript”><!–
google_ad_client=”{{account-id}}”;
/* Banner 468×60 */
google_ad_slot=”{{slot}}”;
google_ad_width={{width}};
google_ad_height={{height}};
//–>
</script><script type=”text/javascript”
src=”http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js”&gt;
</script>”;s:9:”revisions”

In this example there is used a google adsense code, but in your own case there is standing something else.
11: Now change the amount of 304 to 4 and change the ad code, so there comes something like this (don’t forget the 4 stands for amount of AD characters)

“adformat”;s:6:”468×60″;s:4:”code”;s:4:”TEST”;s:9:”revisions”

12: And click “GO” in PHPMyAdmin. now you have made a change for one “problem” Ad;
13: Keep PHPMyAdmin open because the same advanced steps from point 6 and up are needed sometimes more then once!
14: Go to your WordPress Advertising Manager List and delete that one Ad from the list. Also click back to WordPress dashboard and back to Advertising Manager List to see if the Ad is corecly deleted… If not, go back to step 6 and try the steps again.

For some kind of reason the Ad revisions can make you do the steps over and over again, until there is no revision left and the Ad is realy deleted from withing the Advertising Manager List. The best solution is to do these steps for one Ad at the time.

When you cleaned up your Advertising Manager List of “problem” ads, you can use Advertising Manager completely again and Enable W3 Total cache again! But be careful with adding new possible problem ads with a lot of quotes.

Hope this solution can help you!