Threading broken: new replies don’t save the relation to the existing comment

  • Resolved tomrallen

    (@tomrallen)


    8 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hello,

    I’m a long-time self-hosted WordPress user (18 years) and reasonably competent web developer, but one of my sites has a strange bug I can’t diagnose, which occurs whenever a visitor attempts to reply to an existing comment on a post by clicking the front-end comment reply button and submitting the comment form.

    The expected behaviour is that the new comment appears in the thread of the existing comment as a reply (obviously!). In the database, the new comment should have a comment_parent value matching the comment_ID of the existing comment.

    Instead, the reply appears as a new, unthreaded comment, and in the database is missing the comment_parent value.

    This appears to be the case for all guest visitors to the site, regardless of user agent or device.

    Worth mentioning that if I reply to a comment from the front end as a logged-in admin user, the reply does indeed appear as expected. If I reply to a comment from the back end, it also appears as expected.

    I have been running the site with this issue since about 2020 using the Twenty Twenty theme, and tried multiple times to diagnose and fix it with no success. Disabling Jetpack Comments does not help. Switching to a clone of the production site does not help. Even switching to a brand new theme, as I did a couple of weeks ago to Twenty Twenty Four, does not help.

    What I would find helpful is a starting point for debugging the issue, given that I have some knowledge of web development. I know that the standard advice is to reinstall WordPress, but that is a drastic measure I’d rather not take unless there really is no other way. Also, I like solving problems, just need a steer on this one from someone more experienced ??

    Thanks in advance!

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • In a fresh installation without any plugins, this works without any problems. I would therefore guess that a plugin you are using is responsible for this. Hence the following tips:

    Deactivate all plugins. Then reply to an existing comment – is it saved correctly? If so, it was due to one of the plugins.

    If it doesn’t work without all plugins, the next tip would be to change the theme. But you have already tried that.

    Have a look in mu-plugins and wp-config.php to see if there are any individual additions that could also affect this.

    If you want to reinstall the WordPress core, you can do this at any time under Updates. This is not a new installation in that sense. Only all core files are downloaded and stored again. This allows you to rule out manipulation of the core files as the cause.

    Thread Starter tomrallen

    (@tomrallen)

    Thank you.

    By going through this process I have narrowed the source of the bug down to Automattic’s own Jetpack plugin.

    More as I continue investigating!

    Thread Starter tomrallen

    (@tomrallen)

    Solved. After a lot of hours trawling through plugins and settings, the issue rectified itself when I disabled and re-enabled the following setting in Jetpack > Discussion:

    Let visitors use a WordPress.com or Facebook account to comment

    Afraid I have no idea what the internal issue was, but I wish I’d known the solution 4 years ago!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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