FireWire Posted September 5 Share Posted September 5 2nd time this has happened this year, 2nd time I've been brought in to fix it. Two different websites, two different clients of a small marketing business I subcontract for. Directly contributing to loss of revenue due to online ordering being down. Currently managing ~4 WP websites for clients, they're all not a fan. Currently negotiating a contract for a website and an employee at the company said "I f****ing hate WordPress". Feel free to spread the WP love here <3 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireWire Posted September 5 Author Share Posted September 5 Here's a different site I was called in to fix. The design has been screwed up because it never quite looks right and the non-designer that edited the pages didn't click the buttons that change the editor size to "Mobile", "Tablet", and "Desktop" to make sure it would look correct across all devices. The semantic HTML was destroyed because, you know, the <h*> tags are to control the size of the text, right? It murdered SEO because tags aren't being used correctly. I love ads and update notifications that have existed there for weeks and also appear to be broken. I'm not doing anything about it because I'm not contracted for it and who knows what it will break. I do like the power that this design editor gives non-developers though, when things don't look right they can just tweak all of these numbers. I mean, who doesn't know and understand the CSS box model? Surely users can rattle off the differences between px, %, em, rem, and vw. Anyway. The amount of work it takes to make sure a page doesn't look like a trainwreck is, and I mean this, a valuable use of everyone's time- just stack the time I'm getting paid to fix it on top of that. I love WordPress, I make a lot of money off of it. 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireWire Posted September 5 Author Share Posted September 5 Different site I was hired to make simple text edits and remove some menu items. What should have been a 15 minute job ended up taking an hour because the page editor completely broke and it wasn't clear what was causing it. Turns out a jQuery version changed and I had to edit the plugin code directly. This is just tacky. 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireWire Posted September 5 Author Share Posted September 5 4 hours ago, FireWire said: 2nd time this has happened this year, 2nd time I've been brought in to fix it. Two different websites, two different clients of a small marketing business I subcontract for. Directly contributing to loss of revenue due to online ordering being down. 3 hours on the books, issue isn't resolved, hosting company is rolling the entire site back due to possible database data loss. Updating core and plugins didn't solve the issue. Online ordering remained down due to broken connection to the merchant service which worked before a random automated WP upgrade last week. It was already rolled back last week, site stayed online for a couple of days and then went down again. In addition to that, an unstable WP plugin API made their custom theme break and return HTTP 500. The amount of casual breaking updates in the ecosystem is... impressive. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bernhard Posted September 6 Share Posted September 6 I'm quite sure you did, but just in case: Did you check if there is a plugin that can fix your issue? 😄 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireWire Posted October 17 Author Share Posted October 17 Here's a Google Maps WordPress plugin that takes advantage of needing a Google Maps Platform API key. They redirect the user to this page to promote their $12/mo. paid plan even though Google will charge you $0. They're happy to charge you up to $109/mo. for 10,000 views even though Google's platform affords 26,000 under their monthly free credits. Stay classy. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireWire Posted October 25 Author Share Posted October 25 Last time it did, but I guess not being a complete failure this time is something to celebrate. Kudos to WordPress for doing the bare minimum! Here's a gold star ⭐ 2 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireWire Posted November 14 Author Share Posted November 14 Oh, what's this? Another completely different site borked itself? Performed an update using an automated tool through the web host where the core and all plugins are updated at the same time. Is there a right way to update WordPress? The world may never know... This update has has rendered the Admin unusable and inaccessible. Time for a server rollback! Okay! We're back... oh boy... Did you know? Deactivating plugins in the wrong order can make the plugins page hang on a redirect loop every time you try and access it. Time for a server rollback! (Before someone says "that was a caching issue", no it wasn't) Okay! We're back... oh boy... Did you know? In WordPress, a commercial theme or plugin you've purchased and installed may install other commercial plugins that require their own license. When that license expires, you may have to pay for a separate license for the plugin that the plugin/theme you already purchased installed when it comes time to upgrade. PROTIP: the commercial plugins that were installed by the theme or plugin you purchased are not easily recognized as a dependency or indicate what plugin/theme installed it- so, when working on WordPress, keep a shovel handy in case you have to start digging! 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
da² Posted November 14 Share Posted November 14 Some reporter had the incredible chance to capture a team of developers successfully completing a full WordPress update. A very rare and intense footage: (reading your messages, this is how I imagine WordPress 😆 ) 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireWire Posted November 16 Author Share Posted November 16 On 11/14/2023 at 9:49 PM, da² said: Some reporter had the incredible chance to capture a team of developers successfully completing a full WordPress update. Don't be fooled! This reporter has published propaganda to make people think that strategic and intelligent thinking will lead to a successful WordPress update. In reality, there is no logic or reason that can prevent disaster, you are at the mercy of chaos and a hateful god determined to destroy your will to live. On 11/14/2023 at 2:32 PM, FireWire said: Did you know? In WordPress, a commercial theme or plugin you've purchased and installed may install other commercial plugins that require their own license. When that license expires, you may have to pay for a separate license for the plugin that the plugin/theme you already purchased installed when it comes time to upgrade. PROTIP: the commercial plugins that were installed by the theme or plugin you purchased are not easily recognized as a dependency or indicate what plugin/theme installed it- so, when working on WordPress, keep a shovel handy in case you have to start digging! To describe this in more depth, one of the plugins simply wasn't able to be downloaded without paying for another license which prevented the entire site moving from PHP 7.3 to 8.1. There was another plugin for forms that showed a "This form is temporarily unavailable." error to website visitors. This plugin author has decided that not only will it stop working- it will break your site's functionality. After running a standard plugin update in the WordPress admin- it removed functionality and demanded additional payment. The plugin did not indicate that a new license would be needed before updating, and thanks to caching- you couldn't tell the form was broken on the front end! Also- let's talk about caching! Caching for WordPress is a complete mess. Sure this is not exclusive to WP, but it takes the cake. Why? Because hosting companies' "Managed WordPress" plans which are an attractive option for hosting companies because it lets them set very aggressive caching policies to squeeze more capacity out of cheap crappy shared servers. This is why "Managed WordPress" hosting is almost always run on shared servers- even WPEngine, one of the more well known and much more expensive services, is all run on shared servers. I confirmed this via their sales team who was harassing a client about their website's monthly traffic limit. They said that the overages cause "performance issues". After confirming the server isn't a VPS (although they price it like it is), I asked if "we should be worried about other sites slowing down our site because WPEngine uses shared hosting". They left the client alone after that. WP is frustrating, but I take a deep breath and think about how that WP money is helping pay for an upcoming vacation. So... thanks WP? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
da² Posted November 16 Share Posted November 16 1 hour ago, FireWire said: To describe this in more depth, one of the plugins simply wasn't able to be downloaded without paying for another license which prevented the entire site moving from PHP 7.3 to 8.1. Okay, colleague, I'm writing the report for the boss. Let me know if I've summarized it well: Quote I have the profound regret to inform you that the migration of our server is experiencing delays, but for excellent reasons. Indeed, one of our site's plugins had installed another licensed plugin without our knowledge. Therefore, we unfortunately cannot update from PHP 7.3 to PHP 8 because WordPress cannot update, as the aforementioned plugin cannot update, since the licensed plugin cannot update, since we cannot pay for something not requested on our part. Then I asked ChatGPT to improve it in a more funny way: Quote Subject: Update on Server Migration Adventure 🚀 Dear [Boss's Name], I hope this email finds you well amidst the techno-turbulence that is our server migration. I regret to inform you that our journey to PHP 8 has hit a few comedic roadblocks, and I thought it's only fair to share the laughs. Picture this: our server, eager to embrace the PHP 8 era, got caught up in a plugin soap opera. Turns out, one sneaky plugin eloped with another licensed plugin, forming a digital duo we never approved. Now, the plot thickens – WordPress, our ever-dependable protagonist, is caught in the crossfire. It wants to evolve to PHP 8, but alas, it's stuck in a plugin love triangle, unable to break free. And here's the kicker: the plugins are on strike. They're holding our server hostage, refusing to update, and we're left chanting the mantra of "can't update because they won't update, and they won't update because we won't pay for what we didn't order." It's a tech drama of Shakespearean proportions, and I felt it only fair to keep you in the loop. Rest assured, our team is working tirelessly to untangle this digital mess and bring our server back to its senses. Stay tuned for updates on this server migration soap opera – it's a tale for the ages! Best, [Your Name] 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireWire Posted November 17 Author Share Posted November 17 Hahaha- those are great. 6 hours ago, da² said: techno-turbulence This is what I'm putting on the invoice line item. That's it. Also, new DJ name. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts