WPDM and ECP – Conflict and Harmony

[Julie Duran]

Issue: WordPress Download Manager 4.1.8 and Events Calendar Pro 3.9 conflict.

After a WPDM upgrade on a multisite installation, the files no longer attach to the content type (post “download”) on the parent site, while it works fine on all sub sites.

Naturally, I go to the WPDM forum and post the issue. The WPDM author response?

“The Events Calendar” causing the issue, need to be fixed from “The Events Calendar”, anyhow I also tested with other event calendar plugin like https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-event-calendar/ and the event calendar is working fine without making any such issue… The Events Calendar plugin code need to be checked, not in WPDM and The Events Calendar plugin author can do it better & faster.

I’ve then searched the ECP forum to find several posts describing conflicts between the two plugins. The dilemma? I’ve paid for both plugins, and would like to continue use of both – because each plugin individually work great.

Looking for harmony here between the two plugins – Where do we start in order to make it all better for everyone?

The error log:
[Tue Jan 13 13:24:49 2015] [error] [client 66.195.151.210] [WPE Monitoring] Stopwatch php.pod-3147.function.session_start.duration exceeded 200ms. Was: 733ms.\n#0 wpe\\measure\\LoggingStopwatch->logStackTrace(733) called at [/nas/wp/www/common/production/measure.php:198]\n#1 wpe\\measure\\LoggingStopwatch->lap_ended(733) called at [/nas/wp/www/common/production/measure.php:134]\n#2 wpe\\measure\\Stopwatch->lapstart() called at [/nas/wp/www/common/production/measure.php:158]\n#3 wpe\\measure\\Stopwatch->__destruct() called at [/nas/wp/www/cluster-3147/wrc/wp-content/plugins/download-manager/download-manager.php:15]\n#4 session_start() called at [/nas/wp/www/cluster-3147/wrc/wp-content/plugins/download-manager/download-manager.php:15]\n#5 include_once(/nas/wp/www/cluster-3147/wrc/wp-content/plugins/download-manager/download-manager.php) called at [/nas/wp/www/cluster-3147/wrc/wp-settings.php:215]\n#6 require_once(/nas/wp/www/cluster-3147/wrc/wp-settings.php) called at [/nas/wp/www/cluster-3147/wrc/wp-config.php:139]\n#7 require_once(/nas/wp/www/cluster-3147/wrc/wp-config.php) called at [/nas/wp/www/cluster-3147/wrc/wp-load.php:29]\n#8 require_once(/nas/wp/www/cluster-3147/wrc/wp-load.php) called at [/nas/wp/www/cluster-3147/wrc/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php:22]\n, referer: http://wrc.wpengine.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3376&action=edit&message=6

[Julie Duran]

It should be said that on the parent site (WRC) the Events Calendar Pro has been activated – and on the sub site, the ECP has been deactivated.

[Julie Duran]

I also just upgraded WPDM to the latest version of 4.1.9. No change.

[Brook]

Howdy welswebmaster,

Thanks for reaching out with that information. We are aware of a conflict and have reached out to Download Manager to see if they would be interested in working with us to find a solution for everyone. There has been no progress there yet beyond the initial message. I hope to hear back soon.

It is interesting that they are saying it is a bug in our plugin. That is not something we have been made aware of yet. I appreciate your sharing their response. We will have to wait to hear back from them at this point, as we do not have all we’ll need to move forward. But as soon as we’re able rest assured we will.

Do you have any questions for us in the mean time? Currently there are no known work arounds.

Thanks again.

– Brook

[Julie Duran]

I am grateful for your support! I’ve posted your response on the open WPDM ticket as well.

[Brook]

Thanks! I have not heard back yet. I reached out via email. But, if their email support is anything like ours it can be hard to hit everything in 48 hours.

I plan to leave this topic open in the mean time. I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t auto close. Let me know if you have any questions. I’ll post an update when I have one. Cheers!

– Brook

[Julie Duran]

On my support ticket Shaon (author of WPDM) replied: I got an email from event calendar dev, I’ll reply to discuss details with them.

[Brook]

Thanks. Rusel from their team reached out this afternoon. He provided what I need to move forward. These sorts of issues can take a while to investigate and get to the bottom of. So please do not expect a response and fix by the next business day, which is what we usually strive for. But I will keep you updated and let you know what we find. Let me know if you have any questions in the mean time. Thanks!

– Brook

[Ryan Klatt]

Did you have any progress on this? Events Calendar Pro and WP Download Manager are not working happy together. As soon as I disable ECP, I’m able to attach download files just fine. Otherwise with it enabled, the file does not get attached.

[Brook]

Howdy Motografik,

There is nothing new to report since the last status update. I will  definitely post back when we have something though. Cheers!

– Brook

[Julie Duran]

This reply is private.

[Brook]

This reply is private.

[Julie Duran]

This reply is private.

[Brook]

Thank you so much for your patience. I was able to reproduce a problem some of our users pretty clearly experienced. It only happens with very specific server settings. Here were the options I used (though some variations would still likely produce it):

• In wp-config.php I had set WP_DEBUG to true
• I had installed the X-Debug Apache module
• In PHP.ini I had set html_errors = On

When all of those settings are combined then a problem arises. This can be experienced by going to WPDM and uploading a file. On the upload page there is a large error message about undefinited notices in WPDM. Ignore that. Type in your file info and select a file to upload, hit publish. Once published try to download the file. It will instead download a .txt file called “file_not_found.txt”.  If you inspect your post_meta table in the DB, you will see something like this for the ‘__wpdm_files’

a:1:{i:0;s:163:"<br />
<font size='1'><table class='xdebug-error xe-notice' dir='ltr' border='1' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='1'>
<tr><th align='left' bgcolor='#f57900' colspan=";}

What’s happening is that something within WPDM is generating a usually harmless PHP notice. You will likely notice  these throughout WPDM with the above configuration settings. Ironically though the mere act of showing this notice is causing WPDM to actually glitch. Really changing anyone of the above settings to hide these error messages should fix the problem. Once WPDM has updated their code so that PHP Notices and Warnings are no longer shown, then you coould begin showing error message again if you so choose.

However, I believe that another user and yourself, are experiencing a different error. You are both on WP Engine. However you are both running the Pro version of WPDM. And after diving in that seems to be the most likely explanation of the problem. Unfortunately, I do not have access to that version. I requested it at the outset from WPDM, but they were not able to provide. I will request it again just in case they have changed their mind, but it is completely up to them as to whether or not they will give us a license and they might choose not to.

I have to address one thing though. The WPDM author said to you “The Events Calendar plugin author can do it better & faster.” in reference to one of our SQL queries. That is not quite accurate. When I first started using the plugin I actually thought the same thing. The plugin generates some of the longest queries I had ever seen. But as I dived in and tried to find way to make them faster and simpler, I found none. That was because our lead dev has spent literally months optimizing them and has done an incredible job. This has made the queries longer and harder for a human to read, but for a computer they are easy to understand and all the stuff that at first looks like clutter is actually very purposefully there to help a computer rapidly narrow the search results without lots of thought/computing power. It’s quite brilliant in the end, but it can make one of our queries look not great at a glance.

I really wish I had better news. We have invested a lot of time and money into this investigation. I will double check with WPDM if they are willing to help us bring it to a better conclusion. But, if not then there is nothing more we can do. 🙁

Please let me know if you have any questions. Last time I emailed them they responded within the week. Once I get a response, I will let you know what it is.

Cheers!

– Brook

[Julie Duran]

This reply is private.

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