Blank Venue & Organizer

[jebs38]

This is a problem that I have reported and have been trying to isolate for some time. I am reporting this with a new thread so that all the Support Gods will be happy.

This is indeed a problem with all the plugins deactivated and with a default theme (both the 2014 and the 2011 theme). I originally posted this weeks ago: https://tri.be/support/forums/topic/venue-name-is-event-name-bug/#post-107926. I have now isolated this. It only happens with the Facebook Imported events, not events that I or my members submit directly. Also you should know that I originally tried this with the 2014 default theme and then noticed that you said you wanted us to test this with the Caveman Version Default Theme of 2011. I retried the test and I got the same result. I don’t know what your issue is in that you cannot reproduce this behavior. I think you should try it again.

I did notice also that it seems to be an issue with a new venue or organizer being imported. I tried listing events from existing venues and organizers and the issue did not show. It only showed when I added a new Facebook Event “Organization and page usernames / IDs to fetch events from” in the settings section. That might help you track this down.

You can see the issue here: http://bestofnj.staging.wpengine.com/event/happy-mondays-presents-gay-guystraight-guy-amy-malkoff-and-the-moonshines-bible-fiction
The venue shows up as venue and the organizer shows up as blank: http://bestofnj.staging.wpengine.com/venue & http://bestofnj.staging.wpengine.com/organizer

Here is another example:

and here:
http://bestofnj.staging.wpengine.com/event/camp-say-open-house

with the same type of empty or blank venue and organizer fields.

http://bestofnj.staging.wpengine.com/venue & http://bestofnj.staging.wpengine.com/organizer

John

[Barry]

Hi John,

I can appreciate your frustration over our inability to reproduce and solve this one and I want you to know it is a frustration we share – we want you to have a great experience with our plugins and it saddens us when customers make reports to the contrary.

I also sense you might be a little frustrated with the support experience generally – on that topic, can I just note that your previous thread was kept open for a 2 week period and was primarily closed as a piece of good housekeeping, not because we were uninterested in helping (we absolutely do want to help).

Also you should know that I originally tried this with the 2014 default theme and then noticed that you said you wanted us to test this with the Caveman Version Default Theme of 2011.

The reference to Twenty Eleven is something we have chalked down as being in need of an update. For any future support queries, at least until we can amend that text, please do note we don’t actually expect you to rigidly test against Twenty Eleven as a baseline (though doing so is also fine – but, equally, testing with Twenty Twelve/Thirteen/Fourteen is also perfect and won’t meet with any opposition on our count).

To the issue at hand:

I don’t know what your issue is in that you cannot reproduce this behavior. I think you should try it again.

I did notice also that it seems to be an issue with a new venue or organizer being imported. I tried listing events from existing venues and organizers and the issue did not show. It only showed when I added a new Facebook Event “Organization and page usernames / IDs to fetch events from” in the settings section. That might help you track this down.

I’m not sure why we are unable to replicate either, but I still cannot do so.

Following your remarks here I also added HappyMondaysAP to my list of FB pages to import from and imported the same event as you linked to – yet I did not hit up against the same problem. The venue and organizer came across perfectly.

What I’m going to do next is ask a colleague to attempt this on their own, separate, test installation – so please bear with us a little longer, I’ll update you as quickly as I can.

Thanks,

Barry

[Barry]

John: as above I asked a colleague to also try and replicate what you have described and unfortunately she could not, it all worked perfectly. So: if you have tried this with no other plugins (except ours) and a default, unmodified theme then let’s explore some other options:

• It’s possible this issue is environmental in nature. Though it may not be possible for you to do so (if you cannot, that’s fine, but I figured it is worth checking) I wonder if you could confirm if you can replicate the same thing in a different environment – either a hosting account with a different provider or locally, if you have a local testing setup
• It could alternatively be the case that some option or other setting stored in your database is impacting. We could confirm/eliminate this as a possible cause by creating a parallel WordPress installation in a subdirectory beside your existing one – and start off only with our plugins and nothing else (in a sense, the reverse of the steps we normally recommend)

Are either of those possible here?

[jebs38]

Barry,

I have spent hours tracking this down. Is there some way that you guys can come in and look at the database and see what is going on? I will give you admin access to do so.

John

[jebs38]

This reply is private.

[jebs38]

This reply is private.

[jebs38]

This reply is private.

[Barry]

Hi John, thanks.

So with regard to the error messages first of all, though the [error] element suggests a problem, those are actually just regular log entries and are generated by our core plugin whenever the init event takes place (which, generally speaking, is every single time a request is received and processed by WordPress).

I also appreciate the offer of access – however, right now, I’m not sure that would particularly help us especially as I have no reason to doubt that you didn’t carefully follow the regular troubleshooting steps we normally put forward. That said, one last form of troubleshooting that could be worth a shot here though (and while similar to what you have already done is subtly different) is as follows:

• Install a fresh copy of WordPress in a subdirectory, but in the same environment
• Install only The Events Calendar, Events Calendar PRO and Facebook Events
• Test and see if you still face this issue

If you do, that strongly suggests there is some sort of impediment to the import process relating to the hosting environment – but of course it may be that everything works smoothly under those conditions, so the best thing is to try it and see what occurs.

Again, we appreciate your patience and support in looking into this.

[jebs38]

I am doing this now. I cannot set up a subdirectory. I am on multisite and I am going to just set up a different site.

[jebs38]

Barry,

Maybe this is a multisite issue. Could you try and replicate the issue that way?

John

[jebs38]

Barry,

Here is the new install where I added a couple of Facebook Imported events: http://calendartester.bestofnj.staging.wpengine.com/events/

The problems are not showing. Now what do we do? Begin to add plugins back in one by one? This could take years!!!

John

[Barry]

No, I think the missing piece of the puzzle (possibly) was that this is taking place within a multisite environment – I appreciate you taking the time to do the troubleshooting you have already conducted and I’m going to see what I can replicate myself at this point.

Before I do so can you confirm that you are running a subdomain-type network (as opposed to a subdirectory pattern), or is it even a multi-domain installation with different sites on entirely different domains? I just want to ensure my test accurately mirrors your own setup.

Thanks again – I feel confident we may be closing in on the root cause here.

 

[jebs38]

Barry,

I am with WPEngine and the multisite setup is a bit different with them. It is a subdomain setup and there are different domains on that same account. The problematic install is at the base or root of the multisite.

[Barry]

OK, I’m still struggling to replicate here, unfortunately. But let me run through what I did and if anything jumps out at you as being out of synch with your own flow of events please let me know:

• Created a fresh network using subdomains
• Activated Core, PRO and Facebook Events in the “root” site and in a subsite (accessed via a subdomain)
• First in the root site, then as a confidence check in the subsite, I set up Facebook Events and imported a test event (from the HappyMondaysAP group)
• In both cases, it worked as expected: the single event showed with appropriate and functional venue and organizer links

Again, I understand this is a frustrating issue for you – as it is for us – but it’s increasingly looking like a very specific issue:

• We aren’t seeing widespread reports of the same thing
• We cannot replicate in a standalone installation
• We cannot replicate in multisite environment structured with subdomains (which is what you are using, if I understood you correctly)
• You are not able to replicate either, within the standalone test installation you created

We’d love to help here but, regrettably, I think we’re starting to run out of options. I did want to run the above by you though to see if there was anything you felt was important to highlight that might explain the difference in what we are seeing and experiencing.

[jebs38]

Barry,

I have all the plugins activated in the subdomain, not network activated. Is that what you did?

John

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