@asap –
You’ve missed the three cardinal rules of website programming, and they’ve bitten you in the posterior.
Rule Number One
Take backups of your site often, both database and full code (especially before any installs). Automatic DB backups delivered to you via email are great.
Rule Number Two
Once you have a stable store, never, ever update any module – not a plugin, not wordpress, nothing.
Rule Number Three
If you are dragged, kicking and screaming, into having to update your site’s modules (massive security problem, dysfunctional, etc…), never, ever update your live site. Always test exhaustively in a Test environment . Only after the update has proven itself in your test environment, does the update get moved into the production environment.
@asaporito90660 did you update from an ancient version? The only time I’ve seen this happen was when special/foreign characters were used in attribute names – to get them back was just a case of adding them via Products > Attributes (terms are still in the DB).
Jehosophat: Thank goodness I backed everything up before I updated and it’s still on the testing server. I was able to recover this without issue.
Mikejolley: I use only underscores in my attribute names – if those are foreign, then I’m guilty as charged sir.
To answer your other question – YES, my wordpress, theme and woocommerce were all ancient – I was unable to update any without updating all 3 together. There were a few things not working and I had no choice but to upgrade. Now that I’ve restored everything – I’m back to where I started – a broken theme, and old wordpress and an even older woocommerce.
My choices are this:
1. Upgrade them all again and start over on ALL of my listings containing attributes
2. take the site live with a few bugs on the old version.
I’m using an awesome theme with great support but even these guys are baffled as to why the attributes were erased once the upgrade took place. I’m stuck between a big rock and another hard place.
I think underscores were one of the issues. Those are not valid for taxonomies.
If you have a test server up and running with the data intact, you may be able to manually change the attributes table if the upgrade process doesn’t do it. The terms/data won’t be deleted, it will just be invalid and thus appear missing.
@jehosophat
You say to never ever update any module, but does that not leave you vulnerable? I thought updates were released to close security ‘holes’. I’m not saying you are wrong, I’m just asking for more information as I’m looking to use this plugin and, like the OP, will have a LOT of data to input.
Thanks
JJC –
What I mean is that NOTHING should be updated because a nag tells you a new version is available.
That’s not a reason to go through all of the immense trouble you should take when updating – full backups, update and complete testing FIRST in a test environment, then and only then apply any update to your production environment.
Have an important reason to go to this trouble – a **clear** security issue important to your site, a fix to a functional failure, etc…
Just because WP or another plugin says ‘New and Improved!” or ‘Spiffy!’, that’s not a reason to update.
Your are correct in saying “WooCommerce Sucks!” It does. The most lazy support I have had in 18 years of web service.
I agree. Worst support I’ve ever experienced. I’ve been getting a theme conflict on the Checkout page of Woocommerce for weeks and I sent Woocommerce support 5 detailed tickets explaining the issue, with no response. I’ve disabled my plugins, still doesn’t work. I am using it with Stripe Gateway, but those folks told me it’s a prevalent Woocommerce issue. Do not use Woocommerce plugin, unless you want to pay for every little add-on.
@janemig Give support a chance, you posted your request in the wrong section which is why your response was delayed, and you have had a response – also posting multiple requests doesn’t help as tickets are tackled by date.
Thanks
Give support a chance? You’ve got to be kidding. Why don’t you *listen* to the zillions of complaints and actually *do* something about the slow/non-existent responses from support. Maybe go over to the forum and actually respond to some of the posts! I’ve never seen a product of this scale with such a high ratio of posts:responses. Many of my questions have indeed been asked over there, but time after time..I scroll down in excitement.. 0 responses.
Where is all the money going?
Give support a chance? Really? I gave WooCommerce many chances to redeem themselves. They are in trouble, way to thin with support staff and I always like the idea of having at least an office, with a few support staff rather than my guy that lives in Poland. While at the Los Angelas WordCamp last month I had a chance to talk to a few developers that also admitted that Woo support is bad at best. I was lucky that one developer had seen the problem I was having with WooCommerce and was able to fix the code for me. Since then I have had no problems with the site. Thank you to an anonymous nice guy.
