Several glitches after 4.4 update – 4.4 issue or plugin?

  • Resolved shanimal

    (@shanimal)


    8 years, 4 months ago

    My WP recently updated to 4.4. I also installed WordFence around the same time. I’m noticing several oddities now and not sure if it’s the 4.4 or some plug-in incompatibility issue. Tried clearing my internet cache/history and deactivating the WordFence plugin, no change. Here are some things I’m seeing:

    * My dashboard alerts me to new pending messages, but are referring to messages that I received back in 2011 (one of which I already sent to trash and one to spam).

    * When I go to my Installed Plugins page, it shows plugins as deactivated (which I did not deactivate.) If I try to go in and activate one, another one will deactivate.

    * My WP Google Maps plugin (which worked fine before) is glitching BIG TIME. I go in to edit an existing map and the info is blank. I back out and the map is missing suddenly another map has made a copy of itself. Now a couple are missing and several have made copies of themselves. The ones that have NOT gone missing or been duplicated still work fine on our website, but the missing/duplicated ones no longer appear on our website. (The plugin site specifies it hasn’t yet been tested with 4.4, so I thought it was just a problem with this plugin till I noticed all the other weirdness in my dashboard.)

    * Just now, trying to go through my installed plugins, a window popped up saying “A username and password are being requested by http://guff.szub.net. The site says: “Limited!” and it gives a place to enter a username and password, not sure what this was but closed it!

    I’m EXTREMELY beginner on all this kind of stuff so I don’t know how to go in and check codes, don’t know what terms like SQL and JQuery are, etc.

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
  • Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Volunteer Moderator

    8 years, 4 months ago

    Well, that does sound like a huge mess. 🙁

    Let’s start by replacing all of the core files, as maybe some failed to update. Try downloading WordPress again and delete then replace your copies of everything except the wp-config.php file and the /wp-content/ directory with fresh copies from the download. This will effectively replace all of your core files without damaging your content and settings. Some uploaders tend to be unreliable when overwriting files, so don’t forget to delete the original files before replacing them.

    Thread Starter shanimal

    (@shanimal)

    8 years, 3 months ago

    Thank you for your reply, I have to apologize though – I wasn’t just whistlin’ Dixie when I said I’m way “beginner” at this stuff! I can see where to either reinstall WordPress 4.4 or download. From there, “deleting and replacing my copies of everything” – I have no clue how or where to do that and can only imagine scenes of disaster if I poke around with things I don’t understand :/

    Thread Starter shanimal

    (@shanimal)

    8 years, 3 months ago

    I figured I’d try a safer test first and do the reinstall, but afterward went into WP Google Maps and tried opening a map, did the same thing so I guess I need to figure out how to do what you’re suggesting. (The random plug-in deactivation issue reappeared after doing this though!)

    Tried another “safer” test and deactivated all plugins, reinstalled, reactived all plugins and tried WP Google Maps again, and this time was able to go in and successfully make changes! Unfortunately during the glitches I lost several maps and will need to reenter them all, but that’s way better than not being able to fix this.

    Thank you for your suggestion, although I didn’t get that far, I never would have tried what I did without your input 🙂

    Thread Starter shanimal

    (@shanimal)

    8 years, 3 months ago

    Oh good lord. Thought this was fixed but now am having the same problem with my TablePress plugin. Some tables have disappeared, some have made copies of themselves – same thing that WP Google Maps was doing. Updated my WP to 4.4 and installed WordFence at around the same time. Will delete WordFence and see if that does anything. Am about ready to strangle someone… 🙁

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Volunteer Moderator

    8 years, 3 months ago

    At this point, I recommend asking at https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/tablepress#postform so the plugin’s developers and support community can help you with this.

    Thread Starter shanimal

    (@shanimal)

    8 years, 3 months ago

    Thank you, I posted there as well, but I’m thinking this is something other than a specific plugin (unless one of them is somehow messing with multiple other ones), as my maps & tables are deleting & duplicating themselves, and plugins are deactivating and reactivating themselves… 🙁

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Volunteer Moderator

    8 years, 3 months ago

    In that case, I’d have to go back to the original suggestion then.

    Try downloading WordPress again, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel, and delete then replace your copies of everything on the server except the wp-config.php file and the /wp-content/ directory with fresh copies from the download. This will effectively replace all of your core files without damaging your content and settings.

    Some uploaders tend to be unreliable when overwriting files, so don’t forget to delete the original files before replacing them.

    Thread Starter shanimal

    (@shanimal)

    8 years, 3 months ago

    Wasn’t sure how to access my server as you mention above so asked my IT guy and mentioned all the weirdness that’s been happening. He had a suspicion that this wouldn’t solve it and logged into my WP from his office. He tried deactivating all plugins, then reactivating a few at a time and testing the problematic plugins to see if the problem would reappear. I was also logged in from my office, and could recreate the problem here but he wasn’t able to there. He brought his laptop to my office and same thing – his seemed stable, my system would recreate the problem. After a couple minutes he recognized the behavior and got me all fixed (I was using Firefox, he had me install Chrome and it worked fine there, so from now on I’ll only use Chrome to access WP!) Here’s his explanation in case others are having similar issues:

    Some browsers (or plugins) try to “pre-load” some links. In the case of browsers, they do it to try to speed up page load time for links that you might be about to click on. They can fetch the link in the background, then when you click on it, they’ve already got the page data ready to go. But, browsers are usually smart enough not to do this in things like WordPress admin areas. There’s a Wikipedia article about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_prefetching

    Your culprit plugin or extension — and I’m going to guess it’s the shopping one, [I use Goodserach.com for all my searches – never use the Goodshop portion of it though] it’s the most suspicious one by far — is probably doing it to do something like try to set up referral links, so that when you click on a link to buy something somebody else gets a little kickback for it, or to collect data on your shopping and browsing habits. Those are the two most common business models for those things.

    So what’s happening is when you’re in the admin area, SOME of the “Copy” and “Delete” links are being clicked by this plugin.

    We know it’s not Firefox itself because everything was OK when Firefox was launched in Safe Mode (all plugins disabled).

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Volunteer Moderator

    8 years, 3 months ago

    Thanks for sharing what it was!

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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