Version 4.2.2 has disabled site

[Nadia]

Hi there,
I’ve seen other posts about Version 4.2.2 crashing their site. Our problems are the following :

With TEC Pro Version 4.2.2 -> It slows the site down to the point where we recieve a white screen and when it does show the menu is disabled. I’m not sure what to do. For now, I have disabled TEC Pro.

With TEC Version 4.2.2 -> some but not all category pages show but if I go directly to an event in that category it shows

I have emptied the cache, disabled all of the plugins, changed to Twenty Thirteen and Twenty Fourteen and Tweny Fifteen, resaved TEC settings and refreshed the permalinks.

Our site is 100% events and one of the category pages has over 20 K events. Please help.

Thank you in advance! 🙂

[Nadia]

Hello again,
The problem with the category pages is resolved. Phew! However the problem with TEC Pro still exists.

Thank you!

[Geoff B.]

Good evening Nadia and welcome back!

Thank you for reaching out to us.

We are sorry to hear about your website being disabled after the 4.2.2 update. This is certainly unintended on our end.
I would love to help you with this topic. As a side note, if you prefer, we can continue this conversation in french.

I’m glad that you managed to fix the category pages issue.

 

As for Pro crashing your site, that is very weird and we apologize for the inconvenience.
Even though there are 20K events on this site, the fact that it worked like a charm beforehand means that it should continue to do so.

Short term, the solution would be to downgrade to the previous versions of the plugin of course: https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/downgrading-plugin-past-version/

That way, you can still use Pro’s feature while we figure this out.

As per your specific issue, I have a few additional questions:

1. You mentioned that you changed themes as part of your testing process. Can you tell me if you did that just for the category issue or also with the Pro issue ? If it was only for the category issue, could you please send me a copy of your WordPress theme / child theme in a .zip file link (via Dropbox or Google Drive) so that I can run some tests on my end ? (in a private reply)
2. Secondly, can you tell me if you tend to use recurring events on your website ? It might seem like an odd question, but there has been an issue with that in the latest release.

Best regards,

Geoff B.

[Geoff B.]

One final question, can you tell me what your memory setting is in either php.ini or wp-config.php ?

[Nadia]

Hi Geoff,
Thank you for your response. I’ll go ahead and downgrade to a previous version of TEC Pro while waiting for a fix.

To answer your questions… Yes, I changed themes while Pro was still activated and still had the same problem. And, yes, we use recurring events. Also the memory setting is 512M.

Also need to write in French. I’m from the States but live in France.

Thanks for your help!
Nadia

[Geoff B.]

Good evening Nadia,

Thank you for writing back.
I’m glad my suggestion can act as a temporary solution.

Please stick with us as we try to figure this out.

I have some additional suggestions to help us troubleshoot what is going on:

1. I believe that the cause of the issue might have been with the recurring events. There was a glitch with recurring events going out of control with 4.2.2 . We were made aware of that issue on Friday and we just released 4.2.2.1 to fix that. We also recommend using the following snippet to rebuild recurrences that might have been corrupted in the process: https://gist.github.com/GeoffEW/51a6449d1d81f5e60d13994477cdd84c  You might give want to add it to your theme’s functions.php
2. Is the performance issue affecting all views ? (list, month, day) Or just some of them ? The reason I am asking is because we just released the following snippet as a performance improvement for the month view (which your site would certainly benefit from given the number of events): https://git.io/vKl8t . You might give want to add it to your theme’s functions.php

Once both of these are done, if you are up for it, I would recommend another attempt at updating to the latest versions. Perhaps on a test / staging / local clone website to prevent impact on your live site (I can help you with that process if you want).

Let me know how that goes.

Best regards,
Geoff B.

[Nadia]

Hi Geoff,
I’m going to build a local site. I assume I make a copy of all the documents on the ftp and download a copy of the database then adapt the information for the local?

The downgrade didn’t really help things and our site is quite a mess, frankly. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks again for your help. I’d like for this to be kept open so I can get back to you. We’ll see. At any rate, thanks for your help.

Nadia

[Nadia]

Hello again Geoff,
I was able to re-create the site locally. I’m able to have Pro activated without the site crashing (version 4.2.2.1) but activating the mini-calendar or other widgets associated with the Pro version make the site crash. And the site is very very slow.

I’ve also installed the plugin sent out at the same time as the update, which I believe is the same thing you sent on the 12th. We have nearly 38,000 events with 26,400 of them recurring events. I’m a bit nervous that the plugin isn’t working since numbers in the database (postmeta, posts, etc) are not going down. For info, the posts are ab it over 45,000. With the number of recurring events that we have, do you have rough estimate on how long it will take for the plugin to work its magic?

One last question, I’ve left my computer on thinking that if I turn it off the plugin will stop. Is this right?

Any additional advice you can provide would be very helpful.

Many thanks,
Nadia

• This reply was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by Nadia.

[Geoff B.]

Good evening Nadia,

Thank you for writing back, for your great words and for setting up a test site.

I apologize for not answering your questions earlier.
I was unfortunately out of the office over the last 2 days.

I am sorry to hear that your site is currently a mess.
Hopefully, our collaborative efforts will allow us to get to the bottom of this quickly.

I was able to re-create the site locally. I’m able to have Pro activated without the site crashing (version 4.2.2.1) but activating the mini-calendar or other widgets associated with the Pro version make the site crash. And the site is very very slow.

This is very useful information.
I would like to ask some follow-up questions about that, just to make sure we leave no stone unturned.

1. Is your test/local site on a similar type of server and available ressources as your regular server ?
2. Could you send me the complete system information of that test/local installation in a private reply using the instructions found in the following link?https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/sharing-sys-info/
3. Since this is a local installation, can you freely manipulate the Database on the local installation ? Would it possible to get a copy of it ?
4. Have you tried downgrading on the local install ?
5. Is the Cache plugin activated on both installs and if so, was the cache cleared after the upgrade ?

I’m a bit nervous that the plugin isn’t working since numbers in the database (postmeta, posts, etc) are not going down. For info, the posts are ab it over 45,000. With the number of recurring events that we have, do you have rough estimate on how long it will take for the plugin to work its magic?

Normally, the plugin should kick-in with WP Cron (depending how that is set up on your installs and at what frequency it runs). If nothing is running after, let’s say, a day, it means that :

1. WP Cron jobs are not running or running at a very slow rate on your installs
2. There is some database corruption that is preventing the cleanup of your database.

One last question, I’ve left my computer on thinking that if I turn it off the plugin will stop. Is this right?

 

Yes, when you shut down your computer, you also shut down the virtual local server on your computer. As such, the code snippet does not run during that time.
Furthermore, it is possible that your local install is not be setup to run CRON jobs altogether.

I would recommend checking the number of entries in the actual live Database to compare if that is the case.

Any additional advice you can provide would be very helpful.

Could you also send me a screenshot of your settings under Events -> Settings -> Display  and Events -> Settings -> General ?

Thank you for your patience as we try to get to the bottom of this.

Best regards,

Geoff B.

[Nadia]

This reply is private.

[Nadia]

This reply is private.

[Geoff B.]

Good evening Nadia,

Thank you for answering my questions.
I apologize for the quantity, I just want to make sure to help you as fast as possible 🙂

Before we try anything else, I would recommend:

1. Making a backup of your live site’s database.
2. Installing the following plugin instead of the snippet: recurrence-rebuild-helper
3. Clicking on the button you can see in the following screenshot.

Let me know how that goes.

Best regards,
Geoff B.

[Nadia]

Ok. I’ll do that. Should I install the plugin on the live site, the local site, or both?
The live site is currenly downgraded.
Thank you for all of your help.
Nadia

[Geoff B.]

Good afternoon Nadia,

Provided you make a backup first (as per earlier suggestion), I would go straight for the live site (since this is where it’s most pressing).

We will resume work on the local site only if that revised plugin does not solve the issue.

You are very welcome and I’ll be happy when this is all fixed 🙂

Let me know how that goes.

Best regards,
Geoff B.

[Nadia]

Hi Geoff,
Just wanted to let you know that my site works! Thank you so so so much for all of your help and patience.
Kind regards,
Nadia

[Author]

Posts