WordPress is fine and good.

[FireWire]

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

[FireWire]

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.

[FireWire]

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.

[FireWire]

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.

[bernhard]

I'm quite sure you did, but just in case: Did you check if there is a plugin that can fix your issue? ? 

[FireWire]

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.

[FireWire]

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 ⭐

[FireWire]

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!

[da²]

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 ? )

[FireWire]

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?

[da²]

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]

 

[FireWire]

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.

[FireWire]

Upgrading plugins? Contact Form 7 changed IDs in their shortcodes for embedding forms from incrementing integers to hash based strings. From the release notes:

orly.

You see- upgrading the plugin replaced all of the IDs for the forms. It didn't add hashing, it replaced all of the integer IDs in the database during the plugin update process. Instant borkification.

I've dipped my toes in programming once or twice and I can tell you that seems like a pretty big oversight...

TO THE GOOGLES!

First result was a support thread for this issue on the plugin's website. Hey- marked resolved, day has been saved!

But there's no actual solution in the thread. IT WAS A RUSE.

So here we are.

Just in case anyone using WordPress needing help on Contact Form 7 is still looking for a solution and stumbles on this thread, I'll provide it here on a different CMS' support forums:

Go through your entire site and replace all of the existing shortcodes for all of the forms wherever they were added on pages and templates with the new ones. By hand. Couldn't be easier.

The mostest popularest user-friendliest CMS strikes again.

[netcarver]

Recently hit the wordpress wall for the first time trying to help out a charity upgrade their WP-based site. Very troublesome.
 

[neophron]

Recently I transferred a website from WP to PW. First I had to clone the WP site in order to install it on a different hosting company. It turned out, that this WP installation (about 6 main pages and 20 subpages) with a few images, had the size of about 1 GB! This video helped me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIurrwfsCOg&list=LL&index=32&t=474s
I found in the upload directory a lot of 7000px wide jpgs. Every time an image is uploaded, WP generates about 4 or 5 different size variations and keeps them all in the same directory.

There were plugins installed, that all begged for an upgrade. Everywhere in the backend constantly informations from different sources popped up.
After I finished the new website in PW, I compared the amount of the generated html code. The PW code was about 80% smaller.

[FireWire]

@neophron I've noticed that WP sites tend to be big, if not massive when it comes to file/directory sizes. You're right about the auto-generated code as well. I think that WP's central media library lends itself to massive amounts of unused images because they are uploaded and then associated with pages, the opposite of what PW does by associating images at time of upload. It requires a lot of manual maintenance. 

I'd rather a user replicate an upload on multiple pages than rely on a central media manager that requires manual deletion when an image isn't needed anymore. A user won't do it, and shouldn't have to. 

Now we can all agree why hosting companies love WordPress. They love selling people more GBs of disk because they run out of space on their server...

 

 

[teppo]

8 hours ago, FireWire said:

I think that WP's central media library lends itself to massive amounts of unused images because they are uploaded and then associated with pages, the opposite of what PW does by associating images at time of upload. It requires a lot of manual maintenance. 

I'd rather a user replicate an upload on multiple pages than rely on a central media manager that requires manual deletion when an image isn't needed anymore. A user won't do it, and shouldn't have to.

I get that the gist of this thread is "WP bad", but to be fair I've ran relatively often into the opposite issue in ProcessWire: an image or file that should've been uploaded once and then reused is instead uploaded to a whole bunch of separate pages, using loads of unnecessary disk space. ProcessWire doesn't by itself create a lot of unnecessary variations, but it is not uncommon occurrence either: years of code changes combined with badly configured image fields (no limit for image dimensions) can lead to major disk bloat.

Worse yet is when someone decides that a file/image that is separately uploaded all around the place now needs to be updated everywhere. Oh the joy!

Long story short: there are cases for and against both central media/asset management and page based media/asset management, neither are perfect.

Now what is indeed suboptimal is the way WordPress handles variations: they need to be globally registered, are created on upload (whether you need them or not), and won't be (re)created automatically if registered or changed later. This can absolutely lead to unnecessary disk usage, and on the other hand means that you may not have the variation you were looking for available, or it may not be what you expected it to be. But again, each approach/architecture has upsides and downsides ?

--

By the way, I'm not generally against bashing [insert a CMS or any other product here] or venting frustrations about it, but I do think we should try to be fair. WP gets a lot of bad rep for a good reason, there are definitely issues and shortcomings, but it also gets blamed for legacy/aging custom (site/theme specific) code, overuse of third party plugins, outdated third party plugins, etc. None of these are core issues, and it's not really fair to blame them on WP ?

[neophron]

8 hours ago, teppo said:

I get that the gist of this thread is "WP bad", but to be fair I've ran relatively often into the opposite issue in ProcessWire: an image or file that should've been uploaded once and then reused is instead uploaded to a whole bunch of separate pages, using loads of unnecessary disk space. ProcessWire doesn't by itself create a lot of unnecessary variations, but it is not uncommon occurrence either: years of code changes combined with badly configured image fields (no limit for image dimensions) can lead to major disk bloat.

Before I switched to PW, I worked with a german CMS (Contao). It stores all media in the classical way in an upload folder. I'm still managing such Contao websites, some of them are meanwhile about 10 years old.
e.g. among them is a Contao website with a lot of PDFs, that are updating every 3 or 4 months. I'm trying to organize them in subfolders, but meanwhile it's getting messy. And this is where PW is really useful.

8 hours ago, teppo said:

Worse yet is when someone decides that a file/image that is separately uploaded all around the place now needs to be updated everywhere. Oh the joy!

Long story short: there are cases for and against both central media/asset management and page based media/asset management, neither are perfect.

Looking back on my website projects, I must say, that the PW file-concept was for most clients a better solution. Some of them worked before with Contao and they appreciated the upload fields in the PW backend. If there is a need for reusing the same image on different places, PW offers some solutions. Recently I purchased this: https://mediamanager.kongondo.com

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[FireWire]

On 12/31/2023 at 8:43 AM, teppo said:

By the way, I'm not generally against bashing [insert a CMS or any other product here] or venting frustrations about it, but I do think we should try to be fair.

I will wholeheartedly admit that I may be going a little hard on WP. I know there are good devs everywhere who use the platform that works for them and their clients. I could be taking it a little easier on WP and it's plugins.

ALRIGHT, THAT HAVING BEEN SAID *takes swig of beer, chucks bottle*

Kidding, but I have been posting very punctuated examples of issues, some of which are more widespread than others. I also haven't been posting any real nuance, so I guess that's also not really a fair play either.

On 12/31/2023 at 8:43 AM, teppo said:

the opposite issue in ProcessWire: an image or file that should've been uploaded once and then reused is instead uploaded to a whole bunch of separate pages, using loads of unnecessary disk space.

I'll admit that I haven't been in a situation personally where a media manager came to mind- so I'm not going to make a blanket "never use them" statement. I can definitely see how what you said could grow into an issue, and combined with the "free for all" no size limit image fields, certainly.

I like per-page media but a centralized media manager makes sense logically, especially to developers because we reuse code/resources to stay DRY. It's 100% appealing to me in that sense. However the "management" part of a "media manager" takes active effort and I'm inclined to believe that this isn't something clients/users keep in mind. I say that both theoretically and empirically. Media management can be an efficiency construct that exists outside of "keeping my website updated".

Contrast to PW's per-page assets that works the way a client would think it does- when a page doesn't exist anymore, none of it exists anymore. The developer gives up what they know would be a better idea technically for asset reuse (central management) for the simplicity in user experience (distributed management).

Recently I was forwarded email from a client from their web host stating that they had reached their website backup space and directed them to upgrade their plan. They asked if they should buy the upgraded package, I told them I'll take a look. I logged into one of their WordPress sites and deleted almost 1gb of images that had not been in use for years. Logged into another and deleted even more. I was almost 100% sure I knew what the culprit was just reading the email. This was a layer deeper than their server disk space.

A hybrid approach (I'm sure this has been discussed before elsewhere already) in PW would be interesting where asset fields have a "Select From Another Page" option that allows for reuse, but is still tied to pages. Not to get too in-the-weeds, but extend the current assets/{page id} concept where selecting an asset from another page moves that file to assets/{new id}_shared. Now both reference the same file "manager style" on the filesystem. Asset fields could have a way to view a list of pages that also use the asset, with the ability to "Delete From All". If the file is removed from all pages except one, it's moved back to the assets folder of that page and assets/{new_id}_shared is deleted. The back end handles the centralization, the user's workflow remains enhanced but without additional work.

One of the things I discuss with clients is "How can we add utility without increasing workload?". It helps us balance what they want with what they can or are willing to do to make it work. I'm inspired by Colin Chapman, founder of the Lotus car company, where his philosophy when building cars was "Subtract weight, add lightness". In day to day use, I think an optimization for the developer should feel like an optimization/feature for the user if they have to interact with it (as much as reasonably possible of course).

I will repeat the caveat that I haven't experienced a situation where the solution was centralized media management- or I've been such a devotee to distributed management that I never think to consider it. Either way that's on me ?

 

On 12/31/2023 at 8:43 AM, teppo said:

Worse yet is when someone decides that a file/image that is separately uploaded all around the place now needs to be updated everywhere. Oh the joy!

The only time I've run into this is for truly site-wide content like logos, or certification/awards logos for the footer which is handled easy by a "Site Settings" page in the page tree, it works because there's still some sort of dedicated purpose for those fields that keeps the images contextually organized. That might be another case-in-point about my limited experience in that situation though.

 

On 12/31/2023 at 8:43 AM, teppo said:

it also gets blamed for legacy/aging custom (site/theme specific) code, overuse of third party plugins, outdated third party plugins, etc. None of these are core issues, and it's not really fair to blame them on WP

I considered this the most on the my last post re: Contact Form 7. It's a plugin and not core, absolutely. So the developer dropped the ball, happens. Unfortunately issues happen all too often, so I mention it in a manner of a cumulative stack amongst many plugins. I will suggest some responsibility by WP though because of it's built-in reliance on plugins- oh, you want custom fields? (you know what comes next)

It's arguable that there's an ecosystem problem, one that WP's architecture, theme reliance, messy admin, and plugin implementation has a healthy hand in. Is the complexity or quality of the core a contributor to plugin problems? 5 minutes with the WP Codex is a little convincing IMHO. If I had the time maybe I'd try my hand at Fluency for WP (did I just say that out loud?).

Ironically, the list of issues I (and many of us) could come up with exists as an antithesis to the PW methodology- and I guess that's why we're all here in the first place. So I may need to acknowledge that the dead horse is dead and put my beating stick down ?

[Jonathan Lahijani]

@FireWire Pssh. All these issues you speak of are the "old" WordPress from the late 2000s and early 2010s.  You are not using the fantastically re-envisioned NEW WordPress which totally solves all these problems by bringing in React to build Gutenberg out of the carcass of classic WP.  It is NOT a s***-show.  Here, just read this new glowing review:
https://dbushell.com/2024/05/07/modern-wordpress-themes-yikes/
HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40296534

[FireWire]

@Jonathan Lahijani I'm not surprised, but still shocked. I have heard of people not adopting Gutenberg but couldn't tell if it was just a preference to not adopt. This is some critical stuff.

The amount of CSS that WP stores in the database has always been problematic. I was asked to make some adjustments on a site, so logically I went to the theme CSS, nope. Then went to the page builder plugin because you can bump around a lot of values for CSS properties in different units- struck out again. Then went to the in-admin theme editor where I found a bunch of styles in a text box, most of them had '!important' to overcome the styles in the other two places.

The fact that this got even worse, is feature incomplete, breaking, and seemingly underengineered is just wow.

Everyone get in the time machine...

<!--include /text/header.html-->

<!--getenv HTTP_USER_AGENT-->
<!--ifsubstr $exec_result Mozilla-->
  Hey, you are using Netscape!<p>
<!--endif-->

<!--sql database select * from table where user='$username'-->
<!--ifless $numentries 1-->
  Sorry, that record does not exist<p>
<!--endif exit-->
  Welcome <!--$user-->!<p>
  You have <!--$index:0--> credits left in your account.<p>

<!--include /text/footer.html-->

That's PHP 1.0

WordPress has adopted the syntax of PHP 1.0

I, for one, am truly inspired.

[Jonathan Lahijani]

On 5/8/2024 at 1:11 PM, FireWire said:

Everyone get in the time machine...

<!--include /text/header.html-->

<!--getenv HTTP_USER_AGENT-->
<!--ifsubstr $exec_result Mozilla-->
  Hey, you are using Netscape!<p>
<!--endif-->

<!--sql database select * from table where user='$username'-->
<!--ifless $numentries 1-->
  Sorry, that record does not exist<p>
<!--endif exit-->
  Welcome <!--$user-->!<p>
  You have <!--$index:0--> credits left in your account.<p>

<!--include /text/footer.html-->

My eyes.  I think String Theory will be easier to comprehend.

Seriously though, imagine in 4-5 years as the team behind that creation withers away (as they find new jobs) and the domain knowledge leaves the company, with new team members taking over and having to maintain and build upon THAT.  It's going to get worse before it gets... worser?

WordPress is bad for your mental health.

[FireWire]

3 minutes ago, Jonathan Lahijani said:

(as they find new jobs)

If they leave Gutenberg off their resume.

[Jonathan Lahijani]

20 minutes ago, FireWire said:

If they leave Gutenberg off their resume.

Incorrect! You must demonstrate to employers you understand React because everyone is using it (aka Resume Driven Development).

Here's what ChatGPT recommends to write in resume-speak (it took a few refinements to get this):
"Acquired advanced proficiency in React.js through extensive development experience with WordPress Gutenberg."

[FireWire]

When you try to edit a "widget" but something broke with the theme and the entire website goes down, front end, admin, everything. Rendered completely inaccessible. When I say "broke with the theme" I mean, best guess because it's impossible to tell.

Then you, the person who was just asked to update the name of a person and an email address on the page has to explain why the client's site is down without looking like a complete idiot.

Not sure if anyone had started following the WordPress ecosystem, which has further devolved into 3 dumpsters put into a pile and lit on fire, but it's been wild.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/12/24268637/wordpress-org-matt-mullenweg-acf-fork-secure-custom-fields-wp-engine