Disapointed in Support

[Roberto Verde]

I had to have a 3rd party company find a “defect” in your product.. I did this because the bug would not show its ugly head with the default WP theme.. it did on more sophisticated, professional grade themes.. and you guys won’t stand behind your product when using themes other than what ships with WP.. you even ask as much when you post a support request..

Its such a bummer that the fix was to include a reset of a default WP events handler..

If you do include this code in your next release, I would like to get a refund for the pro version we purchased.. our Client has been fuming and we feel like we could not turn to you guys and lean on you.. maybe that was our mistake, but your form creates the impression that you won’t support bugs that cannot be reproduced if using the default theme..

-R

Here is the fix for your bug:

Open up /wp-content/plugins/the-events-calendar/views/list.php and change line 26 from this,

[?php if (have_posts()) : ?]

To this,

[?php wp_reset_query(); if (have_posts()) : ?]

changed >< to ][ for display purposes

HERE IS VIDEO SHOWING THE BUG
BROKEN
http://www.screencast.com/t/w2CDrgiDgKx

WORKS
http://www.screencast.com/t/4USYrQw35Rj

as you can see from the videos we provided, the problem is when you list events by category in the "EVENTS LIST" view.. the calendar view works..

WORKS (default WP theme)
http://caltest2.greenhood.com/events/category/pay/upcoming/

BROKEN (Construct theme)
http://caltest1.greenhood.com/events/category/pay/upcoming/

[Rob]

Hi there Robert. Thanks for the note, and for reaching out here. Let me first apologize on behalf of the whole team for letting you down here. Please know that we do take these concerns very seriously – and as you can see by reviewing the body of content we have in the forums here, we’ve had nearly 2000 threads where we’ve helped users out with specific bugs and integration issues over the past year or so.

On the issue of theme integration, I think you may be a bit confused and I’d like to clarify a couple points. We don’t only support the default Twenty Eleven or Twenty Twelve theme, as you seem to suggest…we just use that as a baseline for all testing. The first step to identifying the source of a trouble when users report one is identifying whether that is a conflict: either with another plugin, or the theme. Nine times out of ten, themes will conform to WordPress standards and it won’t be an issue. But it is inevitable that there will be certain themes and plugins that The Events Calendar/Events Calendar PRO do not integrate with out of the box. (You’re likely to find this same problem with virtually any plugin out there). I would definitely challenge your claim that we don’t “stand by” the product, though, as you’ll find countless threads in this forum where we’ve done just that: worked with a user to get the plugin to integrate with their custom theme. The only times we’ll cut this off, generally, are when the theme isn’t compliant with WordPress best practices…or if the fix is something broader than what we can advise on in the forum, and requires us to provide new code in a future release. In either case we do work hard to make sure all paying customers are satisfied. And best I can tell looking through the other threads you’ve posted, our team has done their best to help get you sorted whenever you had a question. We also do ask that if a theme doesn’t follow the standards of the Twenty Eleven theme and leads to issues with the plugin, users will also reach out to that theme dev in case the issue could be on their end.

I never saw any follow-up from you on the thread my former colleague Joyce was handling (https://theeventscalendar.com/support/forums/topic/cant-display-upcoming-events-in-event-list-mode/), which seemed related to this. We’re happy to take a look again so we can try to get this sorted for you – Joyce, who handled that thread, is no longer with us but another member of the team can take point. However since it sounds like you may have made up your mind already, if you’d like a refund please send an email to pro /a/ tri.be so we can get that processed for you. Such discussions are generally better handled via email than here on the forum, where this type of message really isn’t appropriate.

Thanks again for the note and my apologies once more for your experience. Let us know how you’d like to proceed.

[Roberto Verde]

Rob,

Thx for the detailed response and clarifications around your customer service positions, support for themes, etc..

I am not primarily asking for a refund.. my main concern was that I had to involve a 3rd party resource (the theme developer), who ultimately found a simple fix to the problem by modifying a single line of code in the core Calendar product..

I just feel like the language in the create a new forum post about have you disabled plugins and themes creates the false impression that you won’t support the product if the issue can not be replicated when everything is “stock” WP.. maybe I am the first idiot to be tripped up by it, but I have a pea brain and low IQ..

that being said, once I could not reproduce the error with stock WP, I believed the problem was theme related and felt that I wasn’t going to get support from TRI.BE (again, assumptions just make an ass out of you and me)..

Anyway, as you can see from the post and video, there are two things that seem real here:
1. there is a reproducible bug
2. the team I enlisted seems to have found the fix

My question is, do you agree with my findings and if so, is this the fix you as the developers would have used? or, now that you have awareness, would you implement something else..

My biggest concern is that I have hacked the core and I am going to lose functionality once I upgrade in the future (until I re-hack)..

Let me know what you guys think..

-R

[Leah]

Hey Roberto- I just wanted to give you a quick note to let you know that Rob and the rest of the support team will be out over the weekend, but we’ll be back in touch on Monday.
Thanks!
Leah

[Rob]

Hi again Roberto. Thanks for the follow-up here; I appreciate your explanation, and it sounds like just by us talking here we’re figuring out this may not be as significant an issue as initially thought. I’m really glad to hear you aren’t primarily requesting a refund – we see that as a vote of confidence in the team – and we’ve noted your point on the forum posting guidelines, and the fact that they may be misleading. We’re looking now at what could be done to clarify that a bit and make it more friendly/less hostile.

As for the situation you’ve noted, regarding the specific support issue: you are correct that this is cause for concern re: hacking the core (as the change will get lost on update). While this specific issue is a tad outside my technical area of expertise I have asked our lead dev Paul to take a look here for two reasons:

1. To see if he can identify why that bug would have occurred in the first place, ie if there’s something lacking in our code that could improve it (best I can tell yours is the first report we’ve had here); and
2. To see what the best course of action for fixing it in our next build would be.

As soon as he’s had a chance to take a look (which will be today) I’ll follow-up as needed here. Thanks again for your patience and support in working through this with us.

[Rob]

Hey again Roberto. I actually just talked in greater depth with our dev Paul on this, and he’s pretty sure the latest version of our code (not yet released but featuring a number of updated queries) will resolve this issue for you. Rather than attempt to introduce a fix that may not be necessary in this new architecture, any chance we could get a copy of that theme for testing purposes? If you’re willing to send it over (please note it won’t be tested on a live site, only locally, so no violation of your license should occur) please send it to pro /a/ tri.be with a link referencing this thread, and we’ll jump into it from there. Thanks in advance!

[Roberto Verde]

how can I get you the theme?

[Roberto Verde]

forget it, I see the hidden email.. will send shortly..

[Rob]

Hi Roberto: thanks for the follow-up, and for confirming as much. I have received the theme and we’ll look into this over the next 24-hours. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have anything to share on this end and we can go from there. We appreciate your patience so far and please let me know what else you need in the interim.

[Leah]

Hi Roberto,

Rob is out today so Paul and I have been working on this. We’re attempting to recreate the problem within the Construct Theme. But we’re having trouble even getting to the category page in the first place. Both of us are seeing the “No Upcoming Events Page” (http://d.pr/i/muFr) instead.

I’m wondering if the difference between our sites is some of the options available within the Construct Theme. There are a bunch of options in the dashboard under Construct. Can you tell me or show me what your configurations look like so we can match them? You can post here or email to pro /a/ tri.be

Thanks for your patience as we work to get to the bottom of this.

Cheers,
Leah

[Rob]

Hey again Roberto. Just wanted to follow-up on this once more, to make sure we’ve got you sorted. Do you have any thoughts on Leah’s note, above?

[Rob]

Roberto, just wanted to check in here. Let me know if we can do anything else here….otherwise I’m inclined to close this out at the week’s end. Cheers!

[Rob]

I’m going to close this thread out due to inactivity. Roberto, if you find you need anything else here or aren’t where you need to be…please shoot an email to pro /a/ tri.be referencing this thread, and we’ll re-open it. Cheers!

[Rob]

Re-opening per our email exchange.

[Roberto Verde]

please check your inbox.. you should have full admin access to the WP install so you can check out the configuration details.. thanks again for the ongoing follow through and help..

-R

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