Repeating Event Chaos

[lgoodwin]

I am a newbie to WordPress, but I manage a site for a small Children’s Museum. We use the Event Calendar Pro specifically for the ability to have repeating events that can be categorized. We have repeating events that occur every day, and so my calendar is filled with them. I recently updated to version 3.6.1 and as soon as I did, all my repeating events were corrupted. The original events were left unchanged, but all the subsequent repeats were altered.

First, the plugin created a bunch of mystery categories with number names: 22, 21, 32, etc., and assigned the repeats to these new categories. Then it also changed the time of the event. For example, an event that is scheduled from 1 until 1:45 p.m. now says 7 until 7:45 p.m. In some instances it even changed the dates. One of the categories I have shows the day’s hours of operation. We had several “Closed” events on days when we were not actually closed. In all instances when you click on the event you get a page not found error, but when you hover over the event, the details are shown.

Because of the number of repeating events we would like to have I am pretty desperate to find a solution.
Thanks.

[Brook]

Howdy lgoodwin,

Welcome to WordPress! It is always a joy to have another member in the community.

That is a terribly unfortunate problem you have encoutnered. 🙁 I hate it when updates cause problems. Unfortunately, if a computer glitches at all during the update process it tends to be catastrophic to your data. Of course we all recognize that computer glitches happen and are inevitable, even crazy random things like the sun/stars occasionally cause them. That is why WordPress, Tribe, and all plugin developers implore you to make backups before updating (Note the first 3 steps..). Hopefully you have noticed the warnings WordPress generates each time you update asking you to make backups before proceeding, and followed those direction.

Do you have a backup from before the update? If so, simply restore it, and redo the update. That should fix the problem.

If you do not have a backup, might be up the creek without a paddle. You are far from the first person to make this mistake, but that does not make it any less painful. You should first contact your website host and ask them if the have a backup of your Database. Generally if they do it will cost you some money to retrieve, but many hosts, especially cheaper ones, do not have any such backup. If you are unable to get a backup from your host, then you will need to recreate any lost data. Before doing that though, make a backup. It is possible that your WordPress database is corrupted, and that you will soon start noticing some other glitches. In which case, you would need to export any data you can salvage from WP using the WP Admin > Tools > Export, then delete your database, and start with a fresh one.

There is a small possibility that even if you do have a backup, the same problem will manifest itself next time you update. This could be an indication that WordPress itself has become corrupted, or perhaps one or more of your plugins. There is also the possibility that your server environment does not work with the Update Script. But, we will not know if that is the case until we can retry the update.

Does that all make sense? Do you have any quetions, or were you able to get this fixed by following the above instructions? Please let me know. Cheers!

– Brook

[lgoodwin]

Thanks for your reply,

I started with uninstalling and reinstalling The Events Calendar Pro. It did not fix anything. I still cannot create a repeating event without the event repeats being corrupted. It also still created a new category (this time named “21”) and assigned the event repeats to it.

I am in the process to trying to backup my page (working with my server administrator to make this happen) and then I will try to update WordPress.

I don’t know what other plugin would be corrupted. I disabled all other plugins and retested and the problem still remains.

Furstrated.

[Brook]

Thanks for keeping us posted lgoodwin.

One thing I want to make sure I was clear about, I was stating that you would need a backup from before you updated the plugin. If you made such a backup a few days ago or whenever you updated, awesome definitely ask your server administrator to restore it. But, if you do not have such a backup, that is when you might be “up the creek without a paddle”.

I hope not though. Let us know what happens. Thank you!

– Brook

[Brook]

Howdy,

Since this thread has gone for a while without any response, I am going to archive it. If you are still in need of assistance please open a new thread, we will be happy to help. Thanks!

– Brook

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