Help – My WPP Views have ‘dropped’

Hi Hector,

I even rolled back the FVplayer plugin to eliminate the possibility of this causing this issue.

But again today WPP views are reporting a much lower view that Google Analytics. For example, it is a 4.5k difference.

I really need your help on this to find out what is going on with this since I have not changed anything when it was all working great on Friday. Saturday 8th Feb, this issue started and is the same today, Sunday 9th.

Please advise. Your input on this will be highly appreciated. I am happy to try out things you suggest.

Thanks
Indy

Hi @indyparker,

On the dashboard today, I see that the number of people ‘viewing’ my site dropped from an average of 500 down to 160 and hovering around this number or less even.

Difficult to say what’s going on. It could be anything, so let’s start from the top: what’s your site’s URL?

Plus the other thing I note is in the ‘Trending now’ on the dashboard it is only displaying posts I published today and no posts from the past being viewed are being shown. Which were all showing yesterday with no problem.

The plugin seems to be ‘restricting’ what it is showing on the stats.

The plugin doesn’t “restrict” what’s shown there other than the number of items (it’ll list up to the top 5 only.)

So, to query what was going on, I cleared the ‘cache’ just to see if that would make a difference.

However, I note I lost all my data and it did reset. But the problem above is not fixed.

You should have reached out to me before doing this, unless you made a backup of your database first?

I am very concerned now at how this plugin is not showing all the figures because I checked on my Google Analytics – which shows I have many more views than being shown by WPP.

This is a topic that has been discussed before and you may have already read this but if haven’t: Popular Posts Views Count Different Than Jetpack?

Hi Hector,

Sincere thanks for your response.

Difficult to say what’s going on. It could be anything, so let’s start from the top: what’s your site’s URL?

shorturl.at/ctBDX
—–
The plugin doesn’t “restrict” what’s shown there other than the number of items (it’ll list up to the top 5 only.)

There definitely seems to be some kind of issue of all posts not being shown in the WPP dashboard display. With GA there is a discrepancy for sure, once again today too.
—
You should have reached out to me before doing this unless you made a backup of your database first?

Apologies but I was in an anxious and panic state not know what or why this is happening. So, I clicked on the [cache] button, hoping it would solve it.

The database and site is backed up – this takes place nightly.

———-
This is a topic that has been discussed before and you may have already read this but if haven’t: Popular Posts Views Count Different Than Jetpack?

Read it and I agree there always a slight difference between GA and WPP. But since Saturday when this problem started it is a huge difference not a small one. Today WPP says 1.3k total and GA says 6K.

——————-

Would a delete/re-install of the plugin work? If so, please send me a link to the latest build?

Please advise on what can be done next.

Many Thanks
Indy

Hi Hector,

This is what I get when running the SHOW ENGINES command

https://prntscr.com/qzrxsd

I am on MySQL 5.6 just to let you known and can upgrade to 5.7 or MariaDB.

But I’m not sure if this is the reason for the issue as it was working all fine on Friday 7th.

Regards,
Indy

Hi Hector,

Here is the difference between WPP and GA today as an example

GA

DATE
https://prntscr.com/qzs1q9

https://prntscr.com/qzs25j

———-

WPP

https://prntscr.com/qzs2ck

As you can see there is a significant difference. So, any help with this will be highly appreciated.

Regards,
Indy

shorturl.at/ctBDX

Tried your link but it didn’t work. I was redirected to Short URL’s homepage.

If this is an adult site or a website you’re currently working on and can’t/don’t want to share the full URL here, feel free to share it privately via my contact form.

Would a delete/re-install of the plugin work?

I honestly don’t think so.

The database and site is backed up – this takes place nightly.

You may then ask your host to restore WPP’s database tables (wp_popularpostsdata and wp_popularpostssummary) to get your data back. At least as it was before you clicked on the Clear Cache button last Friday. That’s if you want that data back of course.

This is what I get when running the SHOW ENGINES command

https://prntscr.com/qzrxsd

Looks good to me.

I am on MySQL 5.6 just to let you known and can upgrade to 5.7 or MariaDB.

But I’m not sure if this is the reason for the issue as it was working all fine on Friday 7th.

Using a more recent MySQL/MariaDB version is always recommended for various reasons but -as you already pointed out- if the plugin was working fine with MySQL 5.6 before Friday then it’s unlikely that this is the problem.

Hi Hector,

Looks like I have found the issue.

It is related to our external caching and this note you put out:

We have now this evening flushed ALL the external cache:

https://prntscr.com/qzvw4z

And it appears that the results are now climbing back towards the way they were on Friday.

I am in dialogue with the caching team to now work out why this happened – since it was working fine even without flushing the cache last week.

From your side, can you tell me how best to restore data from our back which we have lost after clicking the [empty cache] button?

Which tables do I need to restore and also importantly how can I merge it with any new data since the [empty cache] was clicked on Saturday 8th Feb? As we have published nearly 10 new posts since then.

I am familiar with SQL so can do some queries as long as you tell me which ones I need to run.

Also, a suggestion would be to add some bold text near the [empty cache] section saying to contact you before doing so? It might help others.

Many thanks for your help and support to date.

Regards,
Indy

It is related to our external caching (…)

Ah, caching.

Well, I’m glad to know you were able to pinpoint the root of the problem.

As a side note, this FAQ might help get things working reliably again in the future: Is WordPress Popular Posts compatible with caching plugins?

From your side, can you tell me how best to restore data from our back which we have lost after clicking the [empty cache] button?

Which tables do I need to restore and also importantly how can I merge it with any new data since the [empty cache] was clicked on Saturday 8th Feb? As we have published nearly 10 new posts since then.

I am familiar with SQL so can do some queries as long as you tell me which ones I need to run.

Here’s how I would go about it:

1. Create a backup of the wp_popularpostssummary table to save the data generated bewteen Friday and now, then
2. Rename said table to something else (eg. wp_popularpostssummary2), then
3. Import the wp_popularpostssummary table from the backup (since chances are your hosting will give you a full sql dump you won’t be able to import only one table, so you could import the sql dump to a separate/temporary database and then export the table); then
4. Run the following query (untested but I believe it should work):

   INSERT INTO wp_popularpostssummary (postid, pageviews, view_date, view_datetime) 
   SELECT * FROM wp_popularpostssummary2 WHERE view_date >= '2020-02-08 00:00:00';

   That query will import all records from wp_popularpostssummary2 into wp_popularpostssummary where the view date is 2020-02-08 00:00:00 or higher (adjust where needed).

Also, a suggestion would be to add some bold text near the [empty cache] section saying to contact you before doing so? It might help others.

I’m thinking maybe I should change the text to something a bit more like “hey, if you delete this stuff you won’t get your data back, you sure you know what you’re doing?” to make people think twice before clicking the button ?? Either that or remove the functionality completely (which -all jokes aside- I’m more inclined to go for.)

Hi Hector,

Thanks for your response. I will try the SQL out on a test server first.

I spoke to the cache team and they responded as follows.

Hello Indy,

Yes, issues like this must be typically handled by the plugins themselves. These issues occur whenever you run any kind of page caching solution, so the plugins have to be designed to operate in such environment. It looks like the WP Popular Posts does support being run in a page cached environment, but to ensure everything works correctly you will also have to enable the option “Ajaxify widget” (if it is not enabled already).

Hope this helps.

I then ‘enabled’ the option. However, it started to mess my layout on my TRENDING section

https://prntscr.com/r0uczr

which should look like this:

https://prntscr.com/r0udco

So, when I disabled it again, it corrected the layout.

Please advise on if I need to have the widget enabled?

Thanks

The “Ajaxify widget” option does exactly what it says: it makes the widget load via AJAX. That’s all that feature does. The actual pageview tracking also happens via AJAX and is independent of the widget: you can even remove the widget from your widget area (sidebar) and WPP will still continue to track visits.

The issue with the layout getting messed up like that is theme territory. You’ll want to reach out to the theme developer and ask them to look into it for you.

Hi Hector,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

So, what you are saying is WPP will still track visits even if the “Ajaxify widget” is enabled or not?

Therefore, it does not have a connection with the cache issue we had over the last few days? If so, why did they say it needs to be enabled?

Is it something on their side that needs addressing?

Please advise.

Regards,
Indy

So, what you are saying is WPP will still track visits even if the “Ajaxify widget” is enabled or not?

Therefore, it does not have a connection with the cache issue we had over the last few days?

Correct.

If so, why did they say it needs to be enabled?

It needs to be enabled if you’re caching your website and if you’re using the WPP widget (which seems to be the case), otherwise your popular posts widget will not get updated because it’ll get cached as well. But this in itself had nothing to do with your pageviews dropping issue.

Is it something on their side that needs addressing?

As I pointed out earlier the views tracking process is also handled via AJAX precisely so the plugin can work with caching plugins. Do check the FAQ I shared before, there are some considerations in there that you and the team behing the caching system need to be aware of in order for the plugin to work as expected.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Hector Cabrera. Reason: Improved wording for clarity

Hi Hector,

I’ve had confirmation from the cache team that enabling the Ajax is the right thing to do but it messes up my TRENDING layout:

https://prntscr.com/r1vukw

It should look like this:

https://prntscr.com/r1vuze

They said:

A good place to start report it to the plugin developer. I presume some CSS is missing or there is some JavaScript code that arranges this section when the page loads initially which has to be ran again after the items are loaded via AJAX.

So, I wonder if you can help me or point me in the right direction as to why it is messing up. Any help will be highly appreciated as I do not have access to the theme developers any longer.

Site URL:
https://bit.ly/55DBurl

Many Thanks
Indy

Hi Indy,

I probably should have been more specific when I commented:

The issue with the layout getting messed up like that is theme territory.

The reason I said that is because out-of-the-box the widget doesn’t include the design your site is using which tells me that your theme developer integrated WPP into the theme (and styled it that way too) hence the this-is-not-within-my-support-scope kind of reply I gave earlier.

Now with that out of the way, sure, I can have a look and try to provide some suggestions as soon as I get some spare time.

Hi Hector,

Many thanks for your reply.

Any help that you can provide with this will be very highly appreciated.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,
Indy