Cannot Remove Plugin Without Breaking Site

  • Resolved VUMEDIA Group

    (@vumediagroup)


    3 years, 10 months ago

    Hello, I am finding it impossible to remove this plugin without breaking the WordPress site. I have tried everything and as soon as I turn off Object Caching in Version 0.14.1 of the W3 Total Cache plugin all of the pages on my website turn into white pages and only the admin login page works. I tried many different approaches including clearing out the cache folder, clearing the .htaccess file, disabling the plugin, disabling all of the other caching options first, disabling WP caching in the wp-config.php file, etc. Nothing works on my site including the default theme until I re-enable the object cache.

    How do I remove this plugin without breaking the site? I have disabled it in the past using previous versions for troubleshooting purposes and it did not break the site.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • Plugin Contributor Marko Vasiljevic

    (@vmarko)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    Hello @vumediagroup

    I am sorry about the issue you are experiencing and I am happy to assist you with this.
    This is a very awkward issue and it’s the first time I am see ng this kid of issue.
    Can you please follow the steps below to completely remove W3 Total Cache:

    1. Purge Cache
    2. Deactivate and Delete Plugin
    3. Check .htaccess File (make backup)
    W3TC will create many directives in .htaccess file to control the caching behavior. Each section will start and end with comments like “#BEGIN W3TC Page Cache core” and “#END W3TC Page Cache core”.
    Ensure that no residual entries are leftover in your .htaccess file after deleting the plugin.
    4. Delete wp-content files and folders
    – cache folder
    – w3tc-config folder
    – object-cache.php (if exists)
    – advanced-cache.php (if exists)
    – dbcache.php (if exists)
    – upgrade folder
    – delete w3-total-cache folder in wp-content/plugins/ (if exists)
    5. Delete Cached Files from CDN (if using CDN)
    Besides deleting all the relevant files, if you use CDN then ensure to purge the cached content from your CDN. This is necessary when you enabled the minify option in W3TC settings. You should delete the minified and combined scripts and CSS files from your CDN server to avoid the site breaking on the browser.

    Thank you!

    Thread Starter VUMEDIA Group

    (@vumediagroup)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    Hello, I followed every single step, as soon as I disable the plugin the whole website turns into a white page. If I look at the source code for the white page there is nothing there. Firefox is a white page, Edge shows HTTP error 500.

    I am not using a CDN. I am using the Avada theme, but I don’t think the theme matters because even the default theme will not display. In the .htaccess file I took out everything except the WP generated code…still a white page.

    Are there any logs that I can send you? I also went into my hosting provider console and cleared the cache from there; still error 500.

    Thread Starter VUMEDIA Group

    (@vumediagroup)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    I had to reinstall the plugin for the site to start working again, as soon as I reinstalled the plugin the site came back up. I have every single option in the plugin disabled except Object Cache: Object Cache Method Disk and the site is working fine. Also after reinstalling, I went into the .htaccess file and removed everything between the #W3TC entries and the site still works fine.

    If I install the plugin and enable every other option in the plugin, the site does not fully work until I enable Object Caching. I do not have any other caching plugin enabled.

    Thread Starter VUMEDIA Group

    (@vumediagroup)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    Ok, I deleted the server’s error log, then disabled the object cache in the plugin and refreshed the page. I then checked the server’s error log. Below are the errors that were logged with the object cache disabled:

    [31-May-2020 22:58:25 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 268435456 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 20480 bytes) in /home2/xxx/public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1989
    [31-May-2020 22:58:25 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 268435456 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 20480 bytes) in /home2/xxx/public_html/wp-includes/class-wp-fatal-error-handler.php on line 67
    [31-May-2020 22:58:25 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 268435456 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 761856 bytes) in Unknown on line 0

    Once I enable the plugin there are no more errors logged in the log file. Hopefully this will help.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by VUMEDIA Group.
    Thread Starter VUMEDIA Group

    (@vumediagroup)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    Here is the WP if statement on line 1989 for wp-db.php

    if ( $this->use_mysqli && $this->result instanceof mysqli_result ) {
    while ( $row = mysqli_fetch_object( $this->result ) ) {
    $this->last_result[ $num_rows ] = $row;
    $num_rows++;
    }
    } elseif ( is_resource( $this->result ) ) {
    while ( $row = mysql_fetch_object( $this->result ) ) {
    $this->last_result[ $num_rows ] = $row;
    $num_rows++;
    }
    }

    Plugin Contributor Marko Vasiljevic

    (@vmarko)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    Hello @vumediagroup

    PHP: Fatal Error: Allowed Memory Size of 268435456 Bytes Exhausted means that your memory limit of 256MB has been reached so possibly you need to increase the memory limit.
    Are you on a shared or dedicated server?
    Can you please check the size of /yourwebsite.com/wp-content/cache/object folder?
    Also, try deleting the object folder, then delete the wp-content/object-cache.php file, disable the object caching in W3 Total Cache, save all settings and purge the cache. See if the issue persists.
    Thanks!

    Thread Starter VUMEDIA Group

    (@vumediagroup)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    Below are the numbers for the wp-content/cache/object folder:

    Size: 24.8MB
    Files: 1324
    Directories: 2445

    Thank you for your help, I contacted my hosting provider and they raised my memory limit from 256MB to 2GB, I was then able to remove the plugin without the site crashing. I think your plugin was actually the only thing keeping my site running with so little memory since it was caching to disk. Removing the plugin or disabling object caching must have sent everything to memory and caused the site to crash without the plugin.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by VUMEDIA Group.
    Plugin Contributor Marko Vasiljevic

    (@vmarko)

    3 years, 10 months ago

    You are most welcome!

    Glad to know your issue is resolved!
    We would really appreciate it if you could take a minute and post a review here. This will help us to continue offering a top-notch product to users.
    Thanks!

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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