Just speculating, but that sounds like a Jetpack bug where it persists settings conditionally based on the presence of other SEO plugins, which aren’t properly cleared on deactivation. This plugin indeed enforces your intended behavior. Glad it got resolved.
@cybr i agree! either jetpack issue or the seo framework doesn’t tidy itself after deactivation…
do you think those “clear transients” cleaner plugins would help clear?
I maintain The SEO Framework — that’s why I got an automated notification about this thread 🙂
I just inspected Jetpack’s code: I don’t think this is a stuck transient or a persistent setting. It’s more about how Jetpack gates Open Graph.
While TSF is active with social tags enabled, it tells Jetpack not to output Open Graph via a filter. That filter is gone as soon as TSF is deactivated—nothing is left “blocking” Jetpack in the database.
Separately, Jetpack also suppresses its own Open Graph output when a bunch of other plugins are present (there are 44 of them).
The “Always Use Open Graph with Jetpack” plugin does the opposite: it forces Jetpack’s tags on regardless of other plugins.
What I think is most likely is that Jetpack Social wasn’t enabled — it’s disabled by default. Jetpack only turns on its Open Graph tags when Jetpack Social or Sharing is active. With TSF handling social meta, that’s easy to overlook. After removing TSF, neither plugin was outputting OG until “Always Use Open Graph” forced Jetpack’s hand.
@cybr your last paragraph is fascinating. i left jetpack social OFF since there are no posts to share to social. This is a good use case to add to the plugin info page for Always Use Open Graph with Jetpack. For when people want to activate the Open Graph hooks in Jetpack while leaving the automatic sharing stuff turned off.
Thanks for your investigation and reply! These “edge cases” really are buried, not often documented, and easy to overlook! These days, everyone needs Open Graph (even for imessage previews, social previews etc)
I’ll post in the Jetpack forum that maybe they add a toggle or note for this OG issue: https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/issues/51439
This is a good use case to add to the plugin info page for Always Use Open Graph with Jetpack.
That’s a really good point. I’ll update the page now!
