Many Errors “Table xxx doesn’t exist”

Hey @gerdski,

Thank you for using Yoast SEO and for reaching out!

You”ve found the Test Helper to try fixing the error, but I get that the errors keep coming so the issue is not resolved.

I believe that your WordPress installation where your database user that is configured in wp-config.php does not have permissions to add tables into your database. Please have a look at this help article: https://yoast.com/help/cannot-create-database-tables/ – and if you don’t have access to change anything for the user, please get in touch with your web host.

Hi,

thanks for the answer.
We actually have permission to change things for the user…every other plugin can create their own tables.
Maybe just creating the missing tables by hand would resolve the errors?

Hello @gerdski 

A user had a similar issue in the past after upgrading to PHP8.1, but they were on WordPress v5.8.3. Can you confirm what version of WordPress you’re running?

Also, do you have a backup of your database? Another user who experienced similar issue restored their WordPress database from a backup and the error stopped occurring.

Do let us know how it goes. 

Hello,

we are running WP 5.9.5.

Restoring a database that is basically working fine seem a bit too drastic as a measure.

I can create the missing tables by hand, if you send me the SQL, maybe that’s a better idea?

Hello Gerdski,

I can’t provide you with the required SQL query. Yoast SEO requires the following permissions: ALTER, CREATE, DELETE, INDEX, INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE and DROP.

Ideally, Yoast SEO is compatible with the last two versions of WordPress. In this case, that’ll be v6.1 & 6.0. You’ll need to update your WordPress version and the problem should be solved.

We do have those permissions.

You might actually be able to provide me with the SQL, because this is somewhere in your plugin code. Maybe a developer can help?

We have WP Version 5.9.5, which was released 1 month ago, and have to stay with it, because other things are not update-safe. Our Yoast Version is 17.6, which is just 1 year old.

Maybe I’ll try a downgrade of Yoast. Which version is compatible with WP 5.9.5.?

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by Gerdski.

@gerdski Thanks for your reply. We’ve identified several concerns in your message and responded to each below:

You might actually be able to provide me with the SQL, because this is somewhere in your plugin code. Maybe a developer can help?

They may be able to, but as this is a support forum handled by the support staff and not the developers. If you need to contact the developers the best channel to do that is via GitHub.

Maybe I’ll try a downgrade of Yoast. Which version is compatible with WP 5.9.5.?

Unfortunately we can’t say whether there is a release fully compatible with 5.9.5 as we only develop for the last two major releases of WordPress (ie 6.1 and 6.0 currently). But based off when the last 5.9.x release was one of the current releases of WordPress, my best guess would be version 19.0. You can download that (and any other release) from advanced view of the WordPress plugin page for Yoast SEO.

Hello, I’ll reply again.

>> You might actually be able to provide me with the SQL, because this is somewhere in your plugin code. Maybe a developer can help?

> They may be able to, but as this is a support forum handled by the support staff and not the developers. If you need to contact the developers the best channel to do that is via GitHub.

Your plugin is flooding our error log, and I believe that support staff should do their best to stop errors of the product they support. In this case you should contact a developer.

> Unfortunately we can’t say whether there is a release fully compatible with 5.9.5 …

Is there really no way to find out the compatibility of your plugin?

> … my best guess would be version 19.0.

Guessing can be dangerous when it comes to database issues, here we need definite answers. I just upgraded to 19.0 on a test site, it is compatible, but the problems persist:

Table ‘yoast_wp_seo_models_indexable’ doesn’t exist
Table ‘yoast_wp_seo_models_indexable_hierarchy’ doesn’t exist
Table ‘yoast_wp_seo_models_primary_term’ doesn’t exist

I noticed that the missing tablesmight be actually existing, but are being called by wrong names. These tables here exist:

wp_yoast_models_indexable
wp_yoast_indexable_hierarchy
wp_yoast_models_indexable

So I suspect that you have changed the table names at some time. Could this be the case? (Maybe ask a developer :-))

Thanks!

Hello Gerdski,

Thanks for your reply.

Now, you’re using WordPress 5.9.5 and Yoast SEO 19.0; these versions are outdated. So running into issues is expected. Unfortunately, we do not provide support for older versions of our plugins. Also, we do not recommend using outdated versions of WordPress, including (our own) plugins and themes, for the reasons covered in?this article.

We understand you may have reasons you don’t want to update but we cant help with issues you run into for using outdated software. Therefore, we’d recommend updating to the latest versions. And when you’re running the latest versions but have issues, we’ll be happy to have a look.

WordPress 5.9.5. is NOT outdated, it is 6 weeks old

Version 5.9.5

We currently support Yoast SEO 19.11 with WordPress 6.0 and 6.1. We will be happy to provide support if you’re on these versions and run into issues.

I am not happy with the kind of support you give. The problem is clearly caused by your plugin, and all you do is blame it on a 6 week old WP version instead of just asking someone who knows.

There was the same question last year, and you replied recommending different versions: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/fatal-error-yoast-seo-2/

Will talk to the customer later and recommend using a different SEO plugin.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by Gerdski.

Hey @gerdski,

Thank you for your reply.

I can feel your frustration but here is the thing. We, at all times, only support the last 2 major versions of WordPress. Whereas you feel that 5.9.5 is very recent, the major version of it is not. The WordPress core team brings out backported versions to older major versions for security reasons, but still, you are missing out on fixes, new features, and better improvements in newer major versions. WordPress 5.9 came out at the beginning of the year (see here) and we continue to strive to support the last 2 major versions of WordPress in both the classic editor experience and the block editor.

To get back to your question, if the tables are still not created, please reach out to your web host to make sure that the right permissions are present for the database user you are using to connect to your database. This is not something we can support or help you with, as this differs per host environment and server platform.

Just to note, please know that in each new version, specifically more recent major versions, WordPress core itself is more and more compatible with PHP8+ and the contributors make a lot of progress in fixing deprecation notices and warnings, so all in all I do recommend you to update to the latest.

Thank you for your answer.

As said before, we do have permission to create those tables. I can create them by hand and asked you for the SQL CREATE statements, but you wouldn’t give them to me.

5.9.5. is 6 Weeks old, the major version is a bit older, true. But the problem doesn’t come from an “outdated” Version. The exact same error exists since years, independent of Plugin and WP Versions, and Support always blames it on some unsupported version ??

Just updated the Test Site to WP 6.1.1 and Yoast SEO to 19.11. Let’s see what happens now…

Errors! As I expected.

But this is funny: The Testsite gives me the same errors as the livesite: db12345678-woo.yoast_wp_seo_models_indexable’ doesn’t exist. But the DB used here is called db12345678-wootest. Somewhere, probably in the DB tables Yoast uses, could be a wrong configuration.

Where do you store Plugin Data? wp_options?

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by Gerdski.

You can find the plugin data by searching the database for entries containing wpseo and wp_yoast, also included in:

wp_yoast_indexable
wp_yoast_indexable_hierarchy
wp_yoast_migrations
wp_yoast_primary_term
wp_yoast_seo_links
wp_yoast_seo_meta