Yes, I agree with medialps. Version 5 is a complete disaster. I have several paid add-ons and have already had to revert to the previous version twice: images are not imported into the media library, feeds stop working… Advice to everyone: do not update to version 5 until it works properly.
Automatic plugin updates are very dangerous in these cases, as they can cause huge problems on live sites. We hope that a second version will be released soon, but I will wait for a third version before updating again and having to restore the entire database…
Hi @medialps and @solserpiente
Thank you both for taking the time to share your experiences. I’m truly sorry to hear about the issues you’ve encountered, we understand how disruptive this can be, especially on live sites with important workflows.
To help us investigate further, could you share a few more details? For example:
- Which feed list remained empty?
- What was the number of imported feeds shown?
- What specifically didn’t work when rolling back to version 4?
Screenshots of your sources and feed items would also be really helpful here.
Please also note that we do not release auto-updates. If Aggregator was updated automatically, it would have been due to the site or host settings. We never push updates without user or host initiation.
As for Aggregator v5, while it introduced some structural changes, all core free features will continue to be supported alongside our premium options. In fact, we’ll be enhancing the free version further in the coming months.
@solserpiente since you’re using paid add-ons, we kindly ask that you contact us via our support form for further assistance. We aren’t able to offer premium support here in the forum, as per its rules.
Thanks again for your feedback and for your patience, it’s genuinely appreciated, and we’re here to help however we can.
Hello, thanks for the support
- All the feeds, the number of imported item was correct (300 was the setting of V4), but clicking on the number the list of items (shown as articles) as empty, and at the same also the content of the shortcode. As if the titles weren’t imported. They could be viewed in the preview (settings of single item), but not in the list of imported themes. Perhaps the preview takes them directly from the feed and not from the database?
- Number of items was set to 300 in V4, but nothing shown in the “article” list
- WP updated the version on Friday and I noticed that automatic fetches (set to hourly) weren’t working, so I checked what was happening and discovered all these problems. Even when launching the fetch manually, I received an import error on some feeds, whereas in V4 it worked (and is working again now after the restore, so there is also a problem with the RSS fetch).
- I tried twice to restart the import using the button, but I probably made things worse. In the end, when I clicked on downgrade, I simply returned to the first point of the V5 import, but not to V4. I had to restore the entire database to Thursday backup and restore the entire plugins\wp-rss-aggregator folder manually, to restore version 4.
- If automatic updates are enabled in the WordPress plugin settings, they will be launched automatically by WordPress. I have now disabled this feature.
Now I’ll have to wait for a working version before trying the update again.
Best Regards
Hi @medialps
Thanks again for your thorough explanation, it really helps us better understand your experience.
While we understand how frustrating this must have been, we also want to highlight that the issues you encountered don’t appear to be affecting all users. This suggests the problem may be related to something specific within your site’s setup or environment. That said, your feedback is incredibly helpful in identifying edge cases that we can improve on.
We’re genuinely glad to hear you were able to restore your site from a backup. That’s always a smart safety net during major updates.
If you’re open to it, we’d be happy to help you troubleshoot this further using a staging copy of your site. That would allow us to dig into the behavior more safely and figure out what might be conflicting or breaking during the migration. Otherwise, you’re welcome to wait for the next update. We’re actively working on improvements and refinements to make the transition to v5 smoother and more reliable.
Thanks again for your patience and input. We’re here to help however we can.
Unfortunately, restoring a backup of a database from a large website in production also exposes you to other risks, such as problems importing certain character sets, indexes, etc., and should only be considered an extraordinary operation.
Hi @medialps
We completely understand your concerns, and we appreciate you taking the time to share such detailed feedback with us. For now, we’ll go ahead and mark this ticket as resolved, and we’ll make sure to keep you updated once we release an update that addresses the issues you’ve described.
Thank you again for your patience and for working with us through this.
v5 is just bad. Everything breaks. v4 was far better. What are the devs thinking? Pretty bad to pull the rug out from under users like this. Some folks like the OP here have production sites working well based on trust of a once reliable plugin.
I was thinking of retrying the update in the next few days, since 5.0.2 has arrived, but then I will definitely wait at least for 5.1
i too have had a terrible upgrade. Have not been able to get a live chat.
My hub does not work. All my pictures that were working and the feed i did upgrade based on support has not work yet. Emails do not answer the question given. Have a person coming to see my progress and i probably will be in trouble
How is the situation after 1 month? Is it absolutely safe to try an update on production site or still not? Thanks
What’s even more disturbing is you can’t close the notification by clicking the ‘X’ in the top right corner. If I don’t want to see this notice, I should be able to close it. After all, it’s my client’s website, not WordPress’s.
Something sketchy went on with this plugin last year It’s almost like they sold it to another development team or they have new management they clearly don’t understand the importance of beta testing before major version updates It’s not that hard to run a plug in like this through its paces and check for bugs and errors before you release it and push it the users with the hopes that you’re going to get people to upgrade to the pro version it seems like a short term thinking money grab It would have been easy to get users like us to beta test on a demo production model since we’re already familiar with the ins and outs of this plugin all you had to do was reach out and offer free pro version for beta testing asking for feedback. This is a good lesson for developers for any plugin for WordPress to learn.
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This reply was modified 7 months ago by
wordmax.
Yes and the fact that they don’t allow you to close the persistent nagging pop up in the admin screens when it is such an easy fix speaks volumes especially after they’ve been notified of this multiple times it’s an easy fix they pretend they don’t know how to do it and ask the user for specifics it’s a basic simple concept that applies to any user. By the way nagging notifications and pop ups are a NO-NO for WordPress plugins TOS but they don’t really seem to care.
So it would be best to wait a little longer…
