19 replies to this topic

[idea15]

I've discovered a very odd problem with Features and Boxes.

For this particular project I have created three features which are in their own feature set for a homepage slideshow, and five boxes which have their own box set for display on each page.

However, every time I go to Dashboard --> Features, the five "default-features" which come with Pagelines to show you how they work (PageLines, Drag & Drop Design, The PageLines Store, Page By Page Options, and Design Control) have duplicated themselves.

Deleting them puts them in the bin but does not stop five fresh features from appearing in their place. Deleting the "default-features" set does nothing. They are fruitful and multiply. I have just deleted 275 of these five duplicated default features.

The same goes for Boxes. 168 of the three Pagelines default boxes (Tons of Addons, Responsive & Mobile, and Drag & Drop) have multiplied.

Goodness knows what sort of a drag they were creating on the WP database.

Obviously this mass deletion process is not something I can tell the client that they will have to do as part of their regular site maintenance.

What could be causing this?

(Just tested this again. Cleared Features down to my 5 and Boxes down to my 3. Logged out. Logged back in. There were now 75 features and 26 boxes.)

[Simon_P]

Yea, its coded so the demo features etc are always there. Just dont delete them, they wont do any harm.

[idea15]

Because of constant feature and box multiplication the database is currently carrying 350 extra phantom posts which cause +/- 500kb of bloat and overhead. That's definitely doing harm. Surely Pagelines can issue a bugfix?

[Simon_P]

I dont understand.

So you start with the 5 demo ones, you delete them to trash, and they come back right? Thats to be expected.

OR

are they just replicating on the main screen anyway without you deleting them?

[idea15]

Even if I do not touch the default boxes and features, they replicate themselves within the Boxes and Features sections regardless of what I do or do not do.

For example, there should be the three default boxes that come with Pagelines and the five boxes that I added. Instead, there are the five boxes that I added and 201 of the three default boxes. So each of the default boxes has made 67 copies of itself.

Screen grab attached. 11 pages of self-replicating boxes!

Attached Files

•  2012-11-21_101538.jpg   85.86K  11 downloads

[Danny]

Hi,

This issue is most likely caused by a plugin, try disabling all non-PageLines plugins and this should resolve the issue.

[idea15]

I disabled all plugins, then reactivated them, with no change.

At one point I selected 50 posts and deleted them. 50 posts were added to the trash, but 50 were not removed from "All". They were still there.

I am deleting 400 extra autogenerated posts twice a day and we haven't even launched this site yet.

[Rob]

The only other time I've seen this happen, it was due to a deprecated plugin.

Rather than just deactivating and reactivating, please go through your non-PL plugins and check their compatibility with WP at www.wordpress.org/extend/plugins

Make sure there are no other users citing them as broken and that they're up to date. That last one was caused, if I remember correctly, by a jquery conflict.

[Simon_P]

I disabled all plugins, then reactivated them, with no change.

I mean leave them deactivated and see if the problem persists. As Rob mentioned, this thing is very rare and is caused by a plugin doing something funky with post ordering or something.

So, disable them all, then re-enable ONE at a time and check the features panel to find the one causing it, if you do find it then maybe we can figure out why its happening.

[idea15]

I've just disabled each plugin one by one. No change.

Audit Trail (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)
Backup WordPress (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)
Recent Posts with Excerpts (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)
WordPress Mobile Pack (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)
Login Lockdown (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)
Login Logo (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)
Revision Control (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)
Secure WordPress (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)
Share by Lockerz (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)
WP Accessibility (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)
WP Float (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)
WP Security Scan (tried disabling, this is not the source of the problem)

That testing process created almost 700 posts.

Features will not go below 105 posts regardless of how many duplicates I delete - recall there should only be 8.

[Simon_P]

You can pm me a login if you like and I'll disable them and try it

[idea15]

Hi Simon, this site launches for the client tomorrow morning, and I'm doing the final pre-launch checks this afternoon. I can't really hand it over for experimentation right now.

[Simon_P]

OK, well please just try what I first suggested:
Disable ALL plugins

Not one at a time ALL of them.

See if problem exists, the enable one at a time until it does.

[idea15]

Hi Simon,

Now that the site is live and being promoted I will have to consult with the client to find a time to do that.

There's another bizarre issue as well. I ran the web site through Sucuri just to be sure and it gave me a Web Site Disabled error (

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) even though the site is alive, perfectly well, and visible to the world. I ran it through another malware scanner and the site is absolutely clean.

The only error I am finding in the server logs is several thousand of
Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in ....... wp-content/themes/pagelines/includes/class.render.css.php on line 504

In the meantime surely there is a way to permanently remove the default boxes and features to stop them duplicating in the first place? I appreciate that you set them up to be undeletable for educational purposes but they are clearly causing more trouble than they are worth and they are not going to be used any further on this project. Can we not simply delete function get_default_fboxes() et al?

[Danny]

The issue of duplicating boxes, features, banners etc... is not caused by malware but a plugin you have installed I would stake my house on it. The issue has been reported before. However, none of our support team or developers have been able to recreate the issue. When the previous report was resolved the user informed us that it was a plugin causing the issue but failed to reply informing us which one.

When we say disable all plugins, we mean disable them all and leave them disabled for a period of time. The duplication should stop, as this is not a feature of PageLines Framework.

[idea15]

I think I have found the culprit, though it's not what I was expecting. It's a brand new plugin called

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This particular web site project is for a publicly funded agency so the site, by law, is required to be accessibility compliant. The plugin helps us go beyond a "checking boxes" approach to accessibility to enabling some advanced features. Pagelines as a theme leaves a lot to be desired in terms of accessibility, and I did have to do a lot of coding changes to get it to pass. If you could take a look at this plugin and figure out why it's not playing nice with Pagelines it would help a lot of people.

[magu]

I've had the same problem with boxes duplicating themselves. Instead of using the default boxes, create a new set and use it as default. I have loose the problem this way.

[Rob]

The topic was marked as resolved.

[idea15]

Why was this topic marked as resolved? A possible source of the problem has been identified but the problem is still happening.

I cannot switch off this critical plugin because of a Pagelines problem.

[Rob]

I think I have found the culprit, though it's not what I was expecting. It's a brand new plugin called

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The solution should be quite apparent. Deactivate that plugin and the problem is resolved. When a plugin is incompatible there's no other solution than deactivation. You can find a compatible replacement.

Since you identified the cause, the topic is resolved.