Database errors after update from version 12

Hi @luismoyano ,

We are sorry to hear about the issue you are having. We understand how frustrating this can be to you especially that you needed to create/recreate the database tables manually only to get more errors afterward.

First, we suggest creating a backup of your site before testing anything. Should you decide to completely remove the Yoast SEO and re-install it, all the data are stored on your database, and given that no changes or no data are deleted from the database, all the settings and metadata entered into the plugin will retain.

If you upgrade to WordPress 5.5.1 and Yoast SEO 15.0, does the issue resolve?

Can you confirm your server has all the right requirements? If you are not sure, speak to your host provider. This guide explains more: https://kb.yoast.com/kb/plugin-requirements/.

Can you please check your error logs and see if there are PHP errors? Can you post it here?

Hi There,
I completely removed Yoast SEO, including cleaning all the transients, cron jobs, files, and tables in the database, because removing the plugin did not delete the tables in the database.

I can confirm you that my server has all the requirements for Yoast SEO, actually is a VPS created just for that website with cPanel in Centos 7, with 8 cores and 8 Gigas of RAM, PHP 7.4, Maria DB 10.3, of course TLS 1.2, and I do not know what else Yoast SEO needs to work properly, maybe nothing else….

My WordPress version is 5.5.1, all the plugins are updated and Yoast SEO is in 15 version, although to change to 15 did not make any change.

BTW, I’m using Zend Opcache, and before the installation I completely clean the OPcache, and just in case, before doing it, I removed by hand the wpseo folder inside the cache folder of the website.

As suggested I installed again Yoast SEO 15 from zero, and I can confirm you that the plugin was installed ok, actually I received no errors in the welcome page of the plugin, and everything seems to be correctly installed. But… It’s funny because any of the tables of Yoast SEO were added to the database, LOL

As this site is not the only site I manage, I visit a new site that I’m creating for a client, and took from there all the tables for Yoast SEO, I cleaned the auto increment numbers, cleaned the rows in the tables, and then I entered those tables in the site with problems.

At this moment, it seems that Yoast SEO is working, but only it seems becuase in the health check I’m still receiving a message saying that (translated from spanish) “The text link counter feature is not working as expected”. Actually, when I open Yoast SEO and I entered in the configuration, I did not receive the ability to recreate all the SEO links, nor to create the count of links as I received the first time I updated Yoast SEO from 12 to 14.9. Weird!

At least, now I’m not receiving php errors and errors and errors that make crash the site. I must say that this site is in production, and although is not a very big site, it receives something around 100.000 unique users per month with 180.000 page views. I tell you this, because I can not play with the site, which is not my site but the site of a client that can kill me (figuratively speaking) if I make something in the site that makes him lose money. I’m sure you understand me.

Any ideas about how to solve this problem? Although Again, it seems that apart from this error in the health system, the tables are starting to be full filed, and it seems that Yoast SEO is working properly.

Thanks in advance!

I forgot to let you know that I tried to fix the issues after the installation with Yoast Helper, and this is the result of every action I tried with it:

Yoast SEO feature Indexables tables & migrations could not be reset.
Yoast SEO feature Site information could not be reset.
Yoast SEO feature Tracking could not be reset.

Yoast SEO feature Configuration wizard has been reset.
Yoast SEO feature Notifications has been reset.
Yoast SEO feature Internal link counter has been reset.
Yoast SEO feature Prominent words calculation has been reset.

As you can see, although I reseted the internal links, Yoast did not offer to me teh ability to re create those links. Weird!!

Sorry to be a nag! Regarding the error I’m receiving in the Health Check System “The text link counter feature is not working as expected”. It adds more information saying:”For this feature to work, Yoast SEO needs to create a table in your database. We could not create this table automatically.”

Could let me know the structure of that table in sql, so that I can add it to my database manually.

Thanks!

Hi,

We understand you have installed Yoast SEO v15 on the site and the tables seem to be working. However, you are getting some kind of other errors.

We ask the following:

1. Are all your non-Yoast plugins and themes also updated?

2. If you check for JavaScript errors do any appear on that page in the backend? If you run the Text Link Counter do any errors appear in the console? Can you describe them or take a screenshot? If you are not sure how to look for JavaScript errors please use this guide https://yoast.com/help/how-to-find-javascript-errors-with-your-browsers-console/.

You can use a tool like: https://pasteboard.co/ to share the image.

1) Yes, all the non yoast plugins are updated. I have only two ones than I have not updated, but it has a minor upgrade from 8.8.20 to 8.10.21, and other one from 4.3.2 to 4.3.3, both of them have silly fixes (almost cosmetic things) that have nothing to do with this issue. Actually, I do not update them only because I need to do again some minor changes on several of its files, to avoid the icons they add in my end, and things like that, and I have no time to do it now. I prefer to fix these mayor errors first.

2) I know perfectly how to see into javascripts errors in console, no worries, I’m programmer, and I can confirm you there is no error in the console, neither in the backend nor in the frontend. Well, I have a javascript error in the frontend related with the log.pinterest.com, but I have been having these error for ages, and I have not been able to fix nor find any answer to fix it yet. But the backend is working perfect with no errors.

See the image when I get the SEO backend: https://pasteboard.co/Jvkfc7z.jpg
Everything seems to be perfect!

The thing is that I’m still receiving the error message in the health system because the system detects there is no table to save those results to the database because a missing table. Actually, the system did not give me the opportunity to re generate those links at any time, like Yoast have done in the case of any of my other sites. And Yoast helper did work in my case, actually Yoast helper removed completely all the Yoast tables again, instead of recreating them. It’s so weird!!

https://pasteboard.co/Jvkgg6i.jpg

Just in case, these are the tables I had to recreate by hand in the database to make Yoast SEO works. Are you missing some table here?

wp_yoast_indexable
wp_yoast_indexable_hierarchy
wp_yoast_migrations
wp_yoast_primary_term
wp_yoast_seo_links

Let me know, because maybe there is a table I need to make it work, and that could solve my issue.

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

Just to confirm, do you also have the wp_yoast_seo_meta table created as well?

Hi,
I had not that table in my database.
I took the structure and unique index from the database of another client’s website, and now I have it already.

In any case, I have not seen the link to re generate the internal link count yet in the SEO Tools in the backend.

So, what’s the next step to have it working?
I’m still seeing this message in my Health System report: https://pasteboard.co/Jvkgg6i.jpg

@luismoyano Can you please confirm whether DB_COLLATE is defined in your wp-config.php file, and if so what value it is using?

I’m using as Storage Engine: InnoDB, and as DB_COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci. All my tables in the database have the same DB_COLLATE and Storage Engine.

But inside WP_CONFIG there is no DB_COLLATE assigned. Here below you can see what I have on it.

define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8’);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);

Should I change this? Let me know!

Hi @luismoyano ,

It looks like the issue you are having is similar to this reported problem. Can you please try the suggested fix on that report and if the issue persists, can you please submit a new report here with all the information so one of our developers can take a look?

Hi Jerlyn,
I do not know what kind of report you are expecting from as there are no errors, just the error in the Health System telling you that counter links are not working because Yoast could not create the table that is already in the database, because I created it by hand.

Actually, in the welcome page of the plugin everything seems to be working perfect, although there is no Yoast table in the database, Amazing!! LOL

These posts you suggested me do not resolve my problem at all.

Yoast SEO is not working, and Yoast helper does not help at all in this issue. Actually, if I click in the “Reset Indexables tables & migrations” Yoast helper thrown an error message saying something like it could not reset the tables, and actaullt it deletes completely all Yoast tables from my database, with the exception now of the “wp_yoast_seo_meta” that I created as well by hand yesterday.

Again…

This is what I have now in my wp_config.php
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8mb4’);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ‘utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci’);

But, in my previous testings this is what I had until yesterday:
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8’);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);

Any of them make works Yoast SEO properly, nor reset the counter links.

I had to create all the tables by hand, copying them from other client site. This is what I have now in my database:

wp_yoast_indexable
wp_yoast_indexable_hierarchy
wp_yoast_migrations
wp_yoast_primary_term
wp_yoast_seo_links
wp_yoast_seo_meta

Are you missing any table?

After I created them by hand, all the tables started to be filled with data, with the exception of wp_yoast_seo_meta which is completely empty. It seems that this table is the one that should save the links, right?

And again…

I removed completely the plugin form my installation, including removing all the tables, cron jobs, Zend OpCache, site Cache created by WP Rocket, etc… And after the installation of the plugin again, I had no Yoast tables created in my database, but the after the installation, WordPress said that the plugin was installed and activated sucessfully.

The domiain in question, is completely alone in a VPS with Centos 7, Php 7.4, Maria DB 10.3, and all the plugins are updated.

Can I have someone really taking a look to my problem?, or I need to keep on spinning an infinite wheel of answers that solve nothing?. Do not take me wrong, I use Yoast SEO in all the sites of my clients, actually as I told you, I moved this site to WordPress 5.5 only because Yoast SEO 14-15, because you encourage people to move to the last version of WordPress everywhere, including your blog, to have the best of Yoast SEO.

But if I would known than this update is was going to make me lose all these amount of time trying to fix things I would not have done it, absolutely not!

I absolutely regret migrating this site to WordPress 5.5.1. It was a complete mistake, and now it’s too late, of course.

Next step? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for clarifying everything. We apologies for any inconvenience. We totally understand how all these are frustrating for you.

Unfortunately, we think the issue is specific to your site. We’d need to investigate further but are unable to do so on these forums. You can purchase Yoast SEO Premium and receive our Premium email support and we can help you further privately by looking at your database and your site’s setup for you.

Here below you can see the last episode in my issue. This is what happened after I updated to Yoast Seo 15.1. Maybe it can give you the clue to solve my problem. In any case, the plugin supposedly has been updated. it’s so weird!!

https://pasteboard.co/JvLYKIG.jpg

Actualización fallida: <!DOCTYPE html> Mantenimiento html { background: #f1f1f1; } body { background: #fff; color: #444; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; margin: 2em auto; padding: 1em 2em; max-width: 700px; -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.13); box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.13); } h1 { border-bottom: 1px solid #dadada; clear: both; color: #666; font-size: 24px; margin: 30px 0 0 0; padding: 0; padding-bottom: 7px; } #error-page { margin-top: 50px; } #error-page p, #error-page .wp-die-message { font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 25px 0 20px; } #error-page code { font-family: Consolas, Monaco, monospace; } ul li { margin-bottom: 10px; font-size: 14px ; } a { color: #0073aa; } a:hover, a:active { color: #006799; } a:focus { color: #124964; -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 1px #5b9dd9, 0 0 2px 1px rgba(30, 140, 190, 0.8); box-shadow: 0 0 0 1px #5b9dd9, 0 0 2px 1px rgba(30, 140, 190, 0.8); outline: none; } .button { background: #f7f7f7; border: 1px solid #ccc; color: #555; display: inline-block; text-decoration: none; font-size: 13px; line-height: 2; height: 28px; margin: 0; padding: 0 10px 1px; cursor: pointer; -webkit-border-radius: 3px; -webkit-appearance: none; border-radius: 3px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box; -moz-box-sizing: border-box; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 0 #ccc; box-shadow: 0 1px 0 #ccc; vertical-align: top; } .button.button-large { height: 30px; line-height: 2.15384615; padding: 0 12px 2px; } .button:hover, .button:focus { background: #fafafa; border-color: #999; color: #23282d; } .button:focus { border-color: #5b9dd9; -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 3px rgba(0, 115, 170, 0.8); box-shadow: 0 0 3px rgba(0, 115, 170, 0.8); outline: none; } .button:active { background: #eee; border-color: #999; -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 2px 5px -3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); box-shadow: inset 0 2px 5px -3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); } No disponible temporalmente por un mantenimiento programado. Vuelve a comprobarlo en unos minutos.

Any ideas?

If you can not help me with this, I will buy the Premium service. But, my fear is that after doing it, you tell me that there is something in my site, and you can not do nothing to solve the problem. And the thing is that the hosting is completely new and updated, so it should work properly.

Let me know if you see something here in this message that can help me to solve my isuue.

Thanks in advance!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by luismoyano.

Hi @luismoyano,

We can definitely understand your concern about whether this will help you, so we have a 30-day refund policy.

Unfortunately, per the forum guidelines, we cannot answer questions about our premium products or services. For questions or more information, please contact our support team directly.