Buggy plugin that killed my site

  • Mexxxi

    (@mexxxi)


    9 years ago

    A while ago I installed this plugin pre-emptively, because I planned to use Adsense, but I wasn’t using it yet. A few days ago an error message appeared on my dashboard:

    “Attention: Google AdSense by BestWebSoft plugin was updated to use Google AdSense API, which is not compatible with the old settings. For further plugin usage, you will need to re-configure it.”

    I ignored it, seeing that I wasn’t making use of it yet. Shortly after I switched servers which went well for like three days. Then yesterday, I was suddenly kicked out of the dashboard and was unable to log back into the back end. My users were also affected. Entering the password would cause the Limit Login plugin to show an error message: wrong password, despite the fact that I used an automated plugin via cookie. After I got myself blocked by my own site, I removed Limit Login, only to find that now I would be presented with an error message telling me to login…after entering the correct password.

    I had to remove the plugins one by one to narrow it down to the most unlikely plugin that was actually causing this mess: this one. Uninstalling it also proved to be unnecessarily difficult. I didn’t want to do it via FTP, but through WordPress itself so that the plugin could clean up properly after itself, including the database entries it created.

    Of course, moving it back into the plugins-folder caused the aforementioned error, so I had to deactivate the plugin manually by editing the database. Afterwards I was able to uninstall it. And what do you know? It still didn’t clean up properly after itself, leaving a “bstwbsftwppdtplgns_options” entry in wp_options behind and who knows what else…

    This plugin leaves much to be desired. Seeing that it screwed up my site for hours and cost me an entire evening even though I didn’t even use it, shows quite a lack of quality. Why does a plugin that is supposed to show ads mess with the password system or any back end phps in the first place? And no, I wasn’t using an Adblocker on my own site.

    Goes to show that one shouldn’t install something that isn’t being used right away. Would have saved me quite some trouble.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

  • Hi,

    Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review. We really appreciate this.

    The message “Attention: Google AdSense by BestWebSoft plugin…” was added because the plugin was updated to use Google AdSense API, and it was done for users convenience, not because of some errors in plugin’s work. The new plugin functionality has a number of serious changes that are incompatible with older plugin versions.

    1) In the site’s frontend, our plugin checks whether you are connected to the Goolge AdSense account and if there are appropriate settings for blocks/widget displaying in the posts/pages content. Since you didn’t use the plugin, we can assume that you were not connected to Google Adsense account and accordingly, no additional plugin functionality has not been activated in the frontend.

    2) Perhaps, during the switched servers you had to make some changes to the database (or you used some plugin for the process automation to move on another server), and because of that some “Limit Login” files were moved incorrectly.

    3) Why the errors appeared only after three days, but not immediately, if you didn’t make any manipulation with the plugin?
    It is not clear for us, in which way Google AdSense by BestWebSoft could affect on the user authentication on you site, since plugin’s functionality isn’t related in any way to users registration and authentication.

    Sincerely,
    BestWebSoft Support Team

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
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