Support

October 1, 2012 at 7:51 pm

What is the link to the site? When was everything updated? What plugins were installed recently?

October 1, 2012 at 8:22 pm

Was there an update to the theme or anything? I see the theme developer released an update a couple of months ago.

I can try to take a quick look. Please send WordPress admin level log in credentials via the contact form on this page: https://eventespresso.com/contact/

Select the “I am sending login info as requested” department form.

October 1, 2012 at 9:19 pm

It looks like the registrations are getting recorded, but the confirmation page is getting overridden for some reason. I have seen this type of thing when the theme overrides the wp_content function and stripping out the dynamic content.

October 1, 2012 at 9:26 pm

Found it. It was the “NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster” plugin. Must have been overriding the content of the pages. Once I deactivated it, the registration form started working.

October 1, 2012 at 11:00 pm

You might try disabling/enabling when needed.

I am not sure there is much we can do to integrate better. Especially if this plugin is not abiding by the WordPress programming standards or using reloading the content of a page improperly.

October 4, 2012 at 1:56 pm

That is a typical response when a developer doesn’t want take the time to investigate the problem further. We are not using apply_filters(‘the_content’) to output our registration forms. We are using the add_shortcode functions to output our content.

Our developers just did a quick search of “the_content” in EE and they are not seeing anywhere it’s “not being used correctly”. Please ask this plugin developer to point out exactly where he is getting this information.

in addition to that, our developers downloaded that plugin and found that is using apply_filters correctly. Here’s an example (apply_filters('the_content', $post->post-excerpt) He should be using add_filter('the_content') instead.

October 8, 2012 at 12:58 pm

Hi Emoria,

I am Event Espresso’s lead developer.

I have confirmed that an installation of Event Espresso with no other plugins running will be disrupted if you activate NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster plugin. So this is not a conflict between Social Networks Auto-Poster and another plugin, it is simply a problem with the Social Networks Auto-Poster plugin.

I think Seth and Darren were both distracted by Mr Van Normainen’s comment that “Event Espresso is incorrectly using apply_filters(‘the_content’ function.” which of course we are not even using, hence the wild goose chase that lead nowhere.

First off, I would like to say that I totally empathize with your being caught in the middle of all of this Emoria, it must be really frustrating. But because we have no way to contact Mr Van Normainen directly, I have no other option than to post this here. Please feel free to forward this to him (or send him a link to this forum post), or ignore this completely, as I understand if you are not interested in this issue any more than you have to be and my response is fairly lengthy (my apologies).

Now… I think the real problem is that Mr Van Normainen plugin is running code when it should not be running, but before I explain this further, please let me give you a little explanation of how part of WordPress works.

This “apply_filters(‘the_content’) function” that everybody keeps talking about is something called a “HOOK” in WordPress. A HOOK allows other plugins, like Event Espresso or the Social Networks Auto-Poster plugin, or even WordPress itself, to inject additional code at some point during WordPress’s execution.

Now, there are two kinds of HOOKS: “action hooks” which allow other blocks of code to simply “do something”, and “filter hooks” which allow other blocks of code to CHANGE a variable that WordPress is using (to filter it). In computer programming, a variable is like a container that stores data and allows that data to be passed around within a program.

In WordPress, when you enter your main text content for a Post or Page, it is passed around within WordPress inside of a variable called $post->content. Just prior to WordPress printing out this content on the frontend of your website, it gives other plugins the opportunity to change (filter) this content through the use of a filter hook. This filter hook is called “the_content”, and other plugins can let WordPress know that they wish to edit and/or add to this content by adding a function to run at that hook point. They do this using something like this:
add_filter( ‘the_content’, ‘name_of_my_function_for_changing_the_content’ )

So multiple plugins (and even WordPress itself) use the “the_content” hook to change and/or add to your text content that you created for that Post or Page, by adding their own filters to that hook point.

These filters can do anything to the content. There are profanity filters that swap bad words with “XXXXX” (for sites with multiple authors), or filters that can add extra content before or after your content, like maybe links to Social Networking sites, or a blurb about the author, or whatever.

WordPress then applies all of these filters using the following :
$content = apply_filters( ‘the_content’, $content );
This is only supposed to happen ONCE during a regular page load. Why only once? Well let’s say a plugin was adding content to the bottom of your content (like a blurb about the author) and WordPress applied all of those filters twice, then you would end up with TWO blurbs about the author at the bottom of your post, instead of just one.

So what does this have to do with the Social Networks Auto Poster plugin ?

The beginning of Mr Van Normainen’s own description of Social Networks Auto Poster is “This plugin automatically publishes posts from your blog to your Social Network accounts such as Facebook, Twitter…”, so when you publish a post, this plugin takes your post content, and sends it to your social networking accounts. So this plugin is clearly attached to an event in WordPress: namely, the saving of a page or post.

Now the REASON the Social Networks Auto Poster plugin is using “apply_filters( ‘the_content’, $content )” is because it wants to fully format your content the same way you would expect it to appear on the frontend of your website. This is a good thing, so Mr Van Normainen is applying ALL of the filters that would normally be editing your content. Again, this is great.

However, since the Social Networks Auto Poster plugin posts your content to your social networks when you “save a post”, I would think it is obvious that it should ONLY be running it’s code when you actually SAVE A POST and SHOULD NOT be running any of it’s code AT ANY OTHER TIME during normal WorPress execution!!! In other words it should NOT be trying to filter your post’s content at any other time, except when you are saving a post and it is formatting it before sending to your social networks.

WHY is ANY of the Social Networks Auto Poster plugin code running at all when people are trying to access your registration page ???!? Does that make sense? What does your registration page have to do with your saving a post ???

If you put toast in your toaster, should your microwave turn on ??? No. I think not.

Unless the Social Networks Auto Poster plugin does something else I don’t know about, I would think that there is ZERO reason for it to run at all on the frontend of your website, since it’s purpose seems solely to do with administrative functions (saving posts).

In my opinion, Mr Van Normainen needs to control his code and contain it so that it is ONLY running at appropriate times. Even if this was not causing completley obvious problems on your site, having code run when it doesn’t need to be running, will slow your site down. Google has outright stated that site speed has an affect on your Google ranking, so any plugin that runs code when it doesn’t need to, can not only slow your site down, but can possibly have a negative affect on your Google ranking!!!

So again, Mr Van Normainen needs to control his code and contain it so that it is ONLY running at appropriate times. I think it is pretty obvious as to the source of your problem, unless of course Mr Van Normainen can give a really good reason why his plugin is “doing stuff” on your registration page (on the frontend of your site), when it’s purpose is to forward your content to your social networks when you “save a post” (in the WordPress admin).