Returning an error with activate_plugin hook

  • Resolved Philip John

    (@philipjohn)


    11 years, 2 months ago

    Hi folks,

    I want to be able to prevent a plugin being activated when certain conditions are present.

    Looking through core it seemed to make sense to use the activate_plugin hook (line 540 of wp-admin/includes/plugin.php).

    The function I’ve hooked in checks for the conditions and through logging I’ve confirmed that the conditions are are all present. Then I return an error, like so;
    return new WP_Error('plugin_conditions', __('This plugin cannot be activated at this time.'));

    However, the plugin is activated successfully and no error is shown.

    So two questions;
    1) Do you think I’m using the right hook to check for my conditions?
    2) Why, when my conditions are present, does returning a new WP_Error not stop the plugin activation and show my error message?

    I notice a few lines below the activate_plugin hook (line 559) there is similar code to return a WP_Error object when unexpected output it generated. This obviously works and I’m not sure how my implementation differs.

    Thanks,
    Phil

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    11 years, 2 months ago

    Your error fails because it’s not expected by the code receiving your returned error. The other returned error works because whatever called activate_plugin() has anticipated a possible error return.

    Anyway, you don’t need this hook to do your checks, plugins can create their own special hooks to run on activation. See Function Reference/register activation hook

    Thread Starter Philip John

    (@philipjohn)

    11 years, 2 months ago

    That’s what I kinda figured… so I’m guessing if I changed my error code to ‘unexpected_output’ it’d probably work…?

    Anyway, you don’t need this hook to do your checks, plugins can create their own special hooks to run on activation

    Sorry, I should have headed off that suggestion originally. My code is an a plugin that will be active and will check the conditions when OTHER plugins are active. It is not checking for those conditions upon it’s own activation. Hence why I haven’t used the activation hook. Thanks for suggesting it though!

    Thread Starter Philip John

    (@philipjohn)

    11 years, 2 months ago

    so I’m guessing if I changed my error code to ‘unexpected_output’ it’d probably work…?

    No is the answer to that 🙂

    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    11 years, 2 months ago

    OK, with that action, you basically have to handle your own errors, you could simply die(), or a redirect might work. Anything you return just gets pushed into an array of plugins with out checking the content.

    Thread Starter Philip John

    (@philipjohn)

    11 years, 2 months ago

    I wanted to avoid die() just because I think it looks messy (and stops other plugins activating if activating more than one at a time…) but I guess that might be the way to do it.

    I do have one other idea that I’ll try first though.

    Thanks for your help 🙂

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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