List not updating on front page only

Hi @ktsiterip, it’s been a while.

You’re using the Data Caching feature on your site. The widget won’t update the popular posts list until the next time the data cache expires.

If you want the WPP widget to update your popular posts list more often you’ll need to either have your Data Cache expire more often as well (eg. every 60 minutes) or disable the feature altogether.

Hi Hector!
Hope all is good with you!
Thank you for your answer. Forgive my ignorance, but are you referring to WPP’s in built caching?
ie should I have “data caching” on “never cache”
At the moment it is set to:
Enable caching every 1 hour
Screenshot of settings here
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a21vw87gJlLPkM36j9hXTivCwVcqYfYP/view?usp=sharing

Thanks as always for your help!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by ktsiterip.

(…) but are you referring to WPP’s in built caching?

Yep!

ie should I have “data caching” on “never cache”

If you want your popular posts list to update right away, yes, you’ll want to disable Data Caching.

Otherwise, if you keep it enabled and the data cache is set to expire every hour then the popular posts list will get updated only once per hour.

Hi Hector
Yes, thats the weird thing – those are the settings I have, yet its not updating
So, I’ve just deleted the widget and inserted a new one – now the more current stories show up, but I have a feeling they will not change, like a couple of days ago when I did the same thing

As we are a high volume site, I am also running the php snippet below to reduce server load, but I would not think that would affect it?

/**
 * Modifies the SQL query performed by WordPress Popular Posts,
 * limiting its execution time to 3000 milliseconds (3 seconds) 
 * to reduce the chances of database locks.
 *
 * @param string
 * @param array
 * @return string
 */
function wpp_limit_query_execution_time($fields, $options){
    return '/*+ MAX_EXECUTION_TIME(3000) */ ' . $fields;
}
add_filter('wpp_query_fields', 'wpp_limit_query_execution_time', 10, 2);

Hi Hector
I’ve removed that snippet and the popular posts seem to be updating

Not sure why it was having that effect – maybe the site needs more than 3 seconds?

I suppose I could try raising the max execution time?

I suppose so, yeah. Can’t say without more information. Try increasing the maximun execution time and report back the results.

Also, which database server (and version) are you using? MySQL or MariaDB?

Hi Hector
Yes, I think that must be it – the script is not giving WPP enough time to work.
We are on mysqlnd 5.0.12-dev
I’ll have a try with different MAX_EXECUTION_TIME values
As always, thank you for your amazing plugin and great support – it really is very appreciated!

Hmm I don’t think that code snippet is doing anything for your site. The MAX_EXECUTION_TIME optimizer hint was introduced with MySQL 5.7 and you’re using version 5.0 over there.

Marking as resolved due to inactivity.