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Heather
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October 30, 2019 at 9:14 am
Hi,
We are having problems with our EE site. I noticed that many of the EE components are out of date. There’s an error “You have the correct Support License Key for Event Espresso – Calendar (EE 4.3+) but your account only allows for automatic upgrades on one domain.”
Please advise. If you could email me directly at jon@spin350.com I would appreciate it.
Thanks!
Jon
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Josh
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October 30, 2019 at 12:05 pm
Hi Jon,
May I ask which site? I checked and there are a number of sites attached to your account (e.g. domain.com/portal, domain.com/portal18).
I can advise to remove the support license key from any additional sites. The key will work for updating on one site only.
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Heather
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October 31, 2019 at 12:26 pm
Hi Josh,
Thanks for your reply. I believe that EE was reinstalled on this server, and now has multiple instances. EE hasn’t been updated in a long time, and users are seeing a spinning wheel when they go to check out.
We would like to start our troubleshooting by updating all the EE plugins. We are not sure which EE instance is the correct one. Can you enable updates temporarily for two sites:
https://friendshiphomeinc.org
https://friendshiphomeinc.org/portal
Thanks!
Jon
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Josh
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October 31, 2019 at 1:08 pm
Hi Jon,
I’m afraid I actually cannot because the license key system doesn’t have an “enable updates temporarily for more sites” feature.
What you can do is remove the key from one of the sites (go to Event Espresso > General Settings, blank out the key field, then save).
Then you’ll be able to update the other site.
Then, you can run a manual update on the site that doesn’t have a support license. The process for a manual update is as follows:
1) Download the EE4 plugin from your account page
2) Go to your WP Dashboard Plugins page and deactivate and delete the old version of Event Espresso (you will not lose data because Event Espresso does not run uninstall scripts when you deactivate & delete the plugin)
3) Upload the new plugin to your site via Dashboard -> Plugins -> Add New.
4) Activate the plugin.
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Heather
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October 31, 2019 at 2:50 pm
Thanks Josh! Just one last question. Is there a simple way to move EE to a clean WordPress installation?
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Josh
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October 31, 2019 at 3:28 pm
When you mention move EE, do you mean move the data like events, registration data, payments and so on?
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Heather
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November 1, 2019 at 5:55 am
Yes. We would like to move the entire EE application to a clean installation of WordPress on another server. This move of the EE application would include all historical data. I do this all the time with apps like WooCommerce, etc.
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Josh
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November 1, 2019 at 7:36 am
So there’s no posts or pages on the new site yet?
If so, what you can do is copy all of the database tables that are prefixed with _esp_. Then you’ll also need to copy over the custom post type data from the posts table. At a minimum that would include rows with post type espresso_events, espresso_venues, and espresso_attendees. If you use phpmyadmin or a similar tool, you can use a query like this:
SELECT * FROMwp_postsWHEREpost_typeLIKE '%espresso_%'
to get those posts.
Then, if use post meta for your events and/or use the wp user add-on, you’ll also need to transfer the data from the postmeta table. And the user & usermeta tables if you use the wp user add-on.
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Heather
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November 1, 2019 at 9:35 am
Great, thanks. Any concerns about serialization with exporting the tables?
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Josh
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November 1, 2019 at 10:26 am
Yes, you should avoid making edits to serialized data (usually you’d find those in the options table). If you’re going to embark on migrating data from the options table, you can use a plugin like WP Migrate DB.
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Heather
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November 5, 2019 at 11:34 am
John, thanks for your help with this. We are trying to update all our EE plugins to see if it fixes the issues. However, NONE of our WordPress Admins can’t see the WP dashboard items, PLUGINS, THEMES, or USERS. It’s almost like EE is restricting the user account, even though it’s an admin. I’ve tried adding another Admin account through the database, but the same thing happens.
Is the WordPress user database linked somehow to EE? Have you ever seen this problem?
Thanks
Jon
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Josh
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November 5, 2019 at 11:38 am
Hi Jon,
Event Espresso does not include any code that restricts access to Plugins, Themes, or Users admin pages.
Some other code on your site or some changes to user roles (which can be stored in the options table) may be doing that.
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Heather
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November 5, 2019 at 11:44 am
Thanks Josh, so the EE users and WP users are separate and not linked in any way?
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Josh
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November 5, 2019 at 11:55 am
Technically there are no EE users. They’re all WP users. In other words, there’s no separate user system provided by EE, a WP user account with admin level capabilities will also be able to access ee admin menus.
What’s likely happening on your site is there was a change to the user roles where their access has been limited by removing capabilities or by removing menu links. EE does neither of those. If it’s the latter, where someone removed the admin menu links, then you should be able to go directly to yourdomain.com/wp-admin/plugins.php to manage plugins. If it’s the former, where someone changed user capabilities for user roles, then you may be able to use a plugin like this one, to restore the user role capabilities.
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Heather
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November 5, 2019 at 12:22 pm
Thanks. Then it sounds like I need to export the WP users from the broken site to the DEV site?
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Josh
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November 5, 2019 at 12:28 pm
It doesn’t sound that way, I’m not sure how that would help things. Have you tried going to yourdomain.com/wp-admin/plugins.php ? Does that page load for you when you’re logged in as an admin?
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Heather
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November 5, 2019 at 12:32 pm
No, it says “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page.”
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Josh
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November 5, 2019 at 12:41 pm
That means it’s not a matter of hiding menu items then.
In that case the user capabilities would need to be restored. I can only guess how your site got to this point. Is there a developer on your team that’s familiar with how the sites are set up? If so then they may be able to troubleshoot this.
If not, then this guide may help:
https://www.role-editor.com/restore-lost-wordpress-admin-permissions/
When you mention the idea of “export the WP users from the broken site to the DEV site” that doesn’t sound like the solution because exporting from the broken site would break the site where you import to.
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Heather
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November 5, 2019 at 1:03 pm
Thanks John. No idea who the previous dev was. Good news is I’ve migrated everything over just using Phpadmin and all the events and post types have come back fine.
They ARE using the WP users plugin for EE. Could I just export their users from the broken site and restore to DEV?
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Josh
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November 5, 2019 at 1:20 pm
I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish by exporting users from a broken site.
Do you understand what the WP user’s plugin for EE does? If not, here’s a link to its sales page that lists out its feature set:
https://eventespresso.com/product/eea-wp-user-integration/
You’ll note that the WP users add-on for EE doesn’t add a new type of user to the site. What it does do is it adds features that can used by a registrant that has a WP user account.
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 5:27 am
Hi Josh,
Any chance you could log in an take a quick look if I gave you the credentials? I worked on this for 8 hours yesterday.
The basic problem is that when users go into the EE portal, there’s a “spinning wheel.” It appears that the EE calendar is not loading, and I did notice some AJAX errors in the browser.
Another problem, and I am not sure if it’s related. WP Administrator accounts are missing several links in the Dashboard, including THEMES, PLUGINS, and USERS. So I am unable to manage anything to diagnose the problem.
Thanks,
Jon
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 5:38 am
Hi,
The JavaScript errors in the console will be sufficient.
With regards to a quick look, I’m afraid without admin access I won’t be able to troubleshoot either. If you follow this guide:
https://www.role-editor.com/restore-lost-wordpress-admin-permissions/
it outlines how to restore the lost admin capabilities.
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 6:07 am
Thanks Josh.
It’s strange, the ADMIN account already had the meta value ‘a:1:{s:13:”administrator”;s:1:”1″;}’ which seems to be admin privileges, right? However, it won’t update to the value in the article, which is ‘a:1:{s:13:”administrator”;b:1;}’
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 6:16 am
Okay, I was able to change the admin meta value according to the article. However, when I login to /wp-admin it just takes me to the EE portal and doesn’t show the WordPress Console. There seems to be some link between user accounts and the EE front end. Thanks for any help!
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 6:21 am
Yeah if that’s for your user ID, then that second s needs to be changed to a b.
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 6:25 am
Thanks, yes, it’s changed. But when I log in I can’t see any of the Dashboard features. It takes me straight to the EE front end.
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 6:35 am
It sounds like someone added a redirect or some custom code that does the redirect. You could check the site’s .htaccess file for any out of the ordinary rewrite rules there.
Also, and this will help with any other troubleshooting, you can FTP into the site and change the name of the /plugins/ folder, then as logged in as admin, visit the site’s wp-admin/plugins.php page. What that will do is deactivate all plugins, so then you can reactivate plugins one by one. You’ll want to watch out for any custom plugins that have code written specific for that site. The same is true for the theme’s functions.php file. If there’s custom code in that file written for that site, it should be reviewed to ensure it’s not causing the redirects.
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 7:08 am
This reply has been marked as private.
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 7:12 am
That’s all fairly standard .htaccess rules for WP, S2Member, redirecting, and Wordfence.
So there’s likely some code on your site that’s restricting access. The thorough way to troubleshoot this is deactivate all plugins (as mentioned earlier) and temporarily switch to the default theme if the theme has any custom code specific to the site.
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 7:55 am
Thanks Josh. I can rename the plugins folder, and test them one by one. But how do you deactivate them? Do I just put in the url admin.php/plugins after wp-admin? I’m not familiar with that method.
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 8:16 am
If you rename the plugins folder, that will self-deactivate all of the plugins on the site.
At which point, if you go to your WordPress dashboard, you can click on the Plugins menu item. You’ll see a list of all the deactivated plugins there.
If at that point you still do not have a plugins menu item, you could try inputting
wp-admin/plugins.php after the domain in your browser’s address bar.
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 8:39 am
This reply has been marked as private.
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 9:15 am
Have you verified that you’ve renamed the plugins folder for the site in question?
For example, with the plugins folder renamed, are the plugins now deactivated for that site? I understand you can’t reach the wp plugins page to verify that way, but any and all plugins settings pages (included EE’s) should all be automatically removed if all plugin files can’t be found.
Also, have you checked the theme’s functions file(s) for any code that’s unique to that site?
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 9:39 am
Yes, renamed plugins folder. Renamed functions. Changed theme to TwentyNineteen (using Phpmyadmin). Nothing I did seems to restore the WP Dashboard links like Themes, Plugins, etc. Also, admins cannot manage EE events, i.e. create or edit them. That was the reason they contacted us.
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 10:16 am
Right, but when you’ve renamed the plugins folder, is there any change to the site in question? For example, after you’ve renamed the plugins folder, the site on the front end should be different in that things like EE events will no longer load (because EE’s plugin files can no longer be found).
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 11:06 am
Yes, of course, EE goes away if/when I rename the plugins folder. And maybe some other ancillary plugins. But admins don’t have access to THEMES, PLUGINS, and USERS so those items don’t display and the dashboard is pretty empty.
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 11:24 am
This rules out custom code from the wp-content/plugins folder then. You could also check for files in the wp-content/mu-plugins folder. If nothing there, then you can continue checking into the database.
If you go into the options table of the database and get the option named
wp_user_roles what’s the serialized array value given for that option?
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 11:49 am
There’s a lot of stuff under wp_user_roles value. You can see it here:
https://prnt.sc/ptdyd4
Thanks!
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 12:07 pm
I don’t see activate_plugins, switch_themes, update_plugins, delete_plugins, install_plugins, nor update_themes in your screenshot. They may be further down the list that the screenshot doesn’t show, but if they are not, that’s why you cannot access those pages.
Going in an editing serialized arrays in the options table could break the site even further, so a careful approach needs to be taken. This guide could be followed:
http://shinephp.com/how-to-change-wordpress-user-role-capabilities/
Another approach you could take is get a serialized array from another site’s wp_user_roles option, where the access is working as expected, then import that value into your broken site’s database.
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 12:20 pm
Thanks, I just checked and they ARE all there.
Would it help to try a “clean” set of values from a fresh WP installation? And if it doesn’t work, or if it breaks the site more, I can just add the old values back in?
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 12:24 pm
It might help to try that, that’s similar to what I wrote in the last sentence of my last reply.
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 12:35 pm
When you say “import that value into your broken site’s database” you mean just copy it into the value field and save it, right?
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 12:38 pm
Yes. You’ll do well to make a backup of the database first too.
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 2:18 pm
This reply has been marked as private.
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 2:19 pm
This reply has been marked as private.
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 3:05 pm
Hi,
You’ll need to check the PHP error log. On the calendar page, when the AJAX request for event data is made, there’s an internal server error (500) being thrown. The PHP error log may have a fatal error logged at the moment the calendar page was requested.
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Heather
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November 6, 2019 at 4:52 pm
Thanks. Debug log says “public_html/friendship/wp-content/themes/pro/framework/functions/frontend/generated-css/renew.php on line 135”
It references this code in renew.php:
.x-main {
width: <?php echo $x_layout_content_width – 3.20197 . ‘%’; ?>;
}
.x-sidebar {
width: <?php echo 100 – 3.20197 – $x_layout_content_width . ‘%’; ?>;
}
Any idea what that could mean?
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Josh
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November 6, 2019 at 5:35 pm
That’s from a PHP notice. You’re looking for a fatal error.
What you could do is temporarily deactivate the other plugins on the dev site and if need be temporarily switch to a default theme to troubleshoot this.
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Heather
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November 7, 2019 at 10:08 am
Hi Josh,
So I’ve made some headway. I backed up wp_users_roles and used the values from a clean wordpress installation. Now everything came back up, except Event Espresso! I can see all the link in the WordPress Console but for some reason EE is now missing.
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Josh
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November 7, 2019 at 10:13 am
That would be expected if your clean WordPress installation didn’t have Event Espresso installed.
You could try going to the yourdomain.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=espresso_maintenance_settings&action=data_reset
Then click the button Reset Event Espresso Capabilities
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Heather
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November 7, 2019 at 10:25 am
It’s giving me a page not found error, whereas if I go to /admin.php?page=espresso_events it says, “You do not have access to this route.”
Any way to manually add the proper permissions in wp_user_roles?
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Heather
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November 7, 2019 at 10:30 am
I forgot to add that EE was installed on the server that I copied the wp_user_roles information from.
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Josh
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November 7, 2019 at 10:40 am
It’s giving me a page not found error, whereas if I go to /admin.php?page=espresso_events it says, “You do not have access to this route.”
May I ask what’s the URL you’re inputing in exactly?
Any way to manually add the proper permissions in wp_user_roles?
No because it’s a serialized array.
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Heather
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November 7, 2019 at 10:44 am
“https://friendshiphomeinc.org/portal/wp-admin/admin.php?page=espresso_events”
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Heather
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November 7, 2019 at 10:47 am
This chat isn’t letting me add the URL for some reason.
Is there any way to get EE running now? The rest of the site is good but now I can’t access EE. Can I just reinstall the core plugin?
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Josh
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November 7, 2019 at 10:50 am
https://friendshiphomeinc.org/portal/wp-admin/admin.php?page=espresso_maintenance_settings&action=data_reset
Is the correct URL to get to the reset page. You’ll click on the Reset Event Espresso Capabilities button there.
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