Importer not importing for the set recurrence + imports duplicates

[jadecreative]

Hi there,

We have an iCal feed which we want to auto-import every hour. However we have two issues:

1. For some reason the import has imported duplicates of ALL events which I now have to delete (there are almost 300 events in total). Why does this happen? Does the importer preserve imported events that are not in the feed causing the duplicates? Does it just re-import all events every time instead of updating previously imported events? Can it just remove events not included so we only have the correct events from the feed and would this avoid duplicates?

2. The import is set to run hourly and was first initiated on September 1, however the last update was September 6. Why is this not working?

[George]

Hey @Jadecreative,

I’m sorry to hear about the events duplication issue on your site!

Does it just re-import all events every time instead of updating previously imported events?

This, yes, is unfortunately what happens at present if you try to import a file or feed that has already-imported events. Some people are working around this for now by just manually importing things, but otherwise this is a known bug and we are working hard on fixing it.

The import is set to run hourly and was first initiated on September 1, however the last update was September 6. Why is this not working?

Hm, this is an interesting issue. After you first initiated the imports on September 1, did you visit your site at all until September 6? Or did you initiate the imports and then were not able to check your site until September 6?

Thank you!
George

[jadecreative]

Thanks George much appreciated,

Will you be able to let me know once the import issue is resolved as this is quite important not only for this site but for any future sites that we use the plugin for?

In terms of initial import, I literally just set it up and did the first import and then didn’t check it until the other day when I noticed that the latest update was Sep 6.

[George]

Hey @jadecreative,

Thanks for your reply – for now, I’d like you to know that we just released a Maintenance Release yesterday for all of our plugins. There isn’t a specific fix for the duplication issue, but I’d recommend updating anyway as performance in general should be slightly improved.

As for your comment here:

I literally just set it up and did the first import and then didn’t check it until the other day when I noticed that the latest update was Sep 6.

This may be the extent of your problem with that import not running, because unfortunately WordPress’ Cron system is not a true cron system. A true cron system runs in the background on a server no matter what, but WordPress’ cron system only runs if there is a visitor on the site. This visitor can be a public or admin user, but if there are no visitors in the interval set up for a WP cron job, then the cron will not run. In terms of the Importer, then, the import will not run.

I’m sorry about this limitation. It’s frustrating to us, too, as WordPress developers, but trying to build a cron separate from WordPress’ own build-in Cron is a bad idea and so we’re sort of limited there for now.

I hope this information helps! Thank you for your patience with us as we improve our plugins and fix bugs, it can be a frustrating process of course but feedback like yours helps us quite a bit.

Sincerely,
George

[Support Droid]

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