modified strings in plug-in php files not detected

Hi Malae,
Could you please confirm if this plugin is hosted on www.ads-software.com repository or not? may I know its name so I can test this function at my end?

Thanks.

Hi wfalaa,

Thanks for your response. The plug-in concerned is Last Modified Footer, Version 1.1.0, Author: Hugh Johnson. Note that this plug-in has not been updated for about 7 years. However, I have used it with no apparent issues for more than 3 years and it is still listed and available for download. Only when I ran debug because of a separate issue with Wordfence, did I discover that there were some strings, which contained deprecated code:

deprecated string on/around line 330 $this->WP_Widget( and following,

and deprecated string on/around line 388 function add_contextual_help( $screen, $help ) { and following.

I changed the code in these strings and some following related strings and have no more notices. However, I was surpised that there was no warning from Wordfence, as usually would occur.

Last Modified Footer still shows in the repository with Current Version 1.1.0 (svn)
Any ideas about this issue? All sites are now on WP 4.7 and Wordfence 6.2.9.
The issue still occurs with two sites hosted on different servers and also with localhost on WAMP.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by Malae.

Further to the above:

Last Modified Footer version 1.2 by Hugh Johnson is in the WordPress Plugin Directory and can be downloaded. It had deprecated coding which I have changed, but Wordfence is still not the detecting changes.

Audio Player version 2.0.4.6 by Martin Laine is

not

in the WordPress Plugin Directory and cannot be found using the original and similar names. It had deprecated coding, which I have just changed and Wordfence

is

detecting these changes.

Hi,
After further investigations regarding this specific plugin “Last Modified Footer“, I can see the developer doesn’t have any files in “trunk” or “tags” in the Subversion repository, I’m not sure why but this is a very good reason explaining how we can’t compare modified files of this plugin with its original ones.

Regarding “Audio Player” plugin, I couldn’t reproduce this issue. I installed the plugin from here and as this plugin isn’t hosted on the official WordPress plugins repository, changes made to the plugin’s files wasn’t detected as expected.

Thanks.

Hi wfalaa,

This issue is confusing. It is not critical, but I believe should be sorted out.

You say that for the plugin “Last Modified Footer”, the developer doesn’t have any files in “trunk”. However, the plugin is still in the WordPress Plugin Directory and can be downloaded. Please explain.

In the case of the “Audio Player” plugin, it is not in the WordPress Plugin Directory and cannot be downloaded, so presumably not in the repository. However, I am getting advice of file modifications made to the “Audio Player” plugin PHP file, so where is the copy of the original file that Wordfence is using to compare?

Returning to the case of the “Last Modified Footer”, the opposite is true, the file is in the repository, but no notification of modifications, means that Wordfence is not finding it.

From the above, I surmise that Wordfence keeps its own copies of plugin files. This would explain, why you could come to a different conclusion, which is the opposite of what I have found in these two instances.

I can now add another similar anomaly: Today “Duplicator” plugin updated from version 1.1.26 to 1.1.28 and after scanning to remove the warning of the update, I received a new warning about the readme.txt file: This file belongs to plugin “Duplicator” version “1.1.28” and has been modified from the file that is distributed by www.ads-software.com for this version. Comparing the files shows that the original file is for version 1.1.26!

These three issues can be explained if Wordfence has its own copies of the file but they are not up-to-date.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Malae.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Malae.

– We fetch all the theme/plugins on the official WordPress repository to our own repository, this helps us to compare any theme/plugin installed on your server with the original version, but in case of this specific plugin “Last Modified Footer”, there are no files in “Tags” or “Trunk”, so this plugin wasn’t fetched to our own repository, that’s why it doesn’t get compared, I suggest notifying the plugin author to make sure he follows the official WordPress version control guidelines.

– Regarding “Audio Player” plugin, as I told you I can’t seem to replicate this behaviour at my end, but one explanation could be that we still have this plugin on our own repository before it was deleted from WordPress repository, I need to check that with my workmates.

– The last question regarding “Duplicator” plugin, yes, sometimes this happens just till we get our repository updated, running a new scan after a while should resolve this issue.

Thanks.

Hi wfalaa,

Thanks for your reply.

I am satified that I understand the causes of the behaviour and consider the issues resolved.