Subsite Plugin Activation – Plugin Deactivation – BEWARE

WOOOW — here’s some frosting;

Now – even after Deactivation of this Plugin – It’s interfering with Activation of SubSite Plugins.

For the benefit of the doubt, I decided to toy around with the plugin a bit knowing it’s erroneous – but still wanting it’s features. Not to mention I was a bit negative and should put in footwork for a solution.

Here’s another scenario;
1. Plugin Activated
2. Plugin Order Groups Established.
3. Plugin Deactivated to get around the asinine bug (above).
4. Plugins Enabled as Intended.
5. Plugin Reactivated.
6. Plugins Deactivated.
7. Plugin Disabled.
8. Can’t ReActivate Plugins.
9. Plugins not involved in the above process Activate/Deactivate as they should.

It’s current behavior is Malware. If I can’t fix this error myself I’m going to mark/flag it as such.

Just… wow. *facepalm*

I activated the Plugin; Plugins that Would Not Activate in the Previous Scenario Could Activate Again.

I deactivated the Plugin; Plugins in the Previous Scenario Wouldn’t Activate.

I deleted the Plugin Order Groups; 1 (one) Plugin could only be activated at a time – disabling previously activated plugins.

Meaning; This plugin acted as Malware and damaged the database somewhere, or files remained active When They Should Not – even in deactivation.

This is a MultiSite installation.

Now I’m tired, it’s 2:30am and I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the bug this plugin caused for many hours. I intend to flag this unless I get a solution soon, because this plugin is clearly Acting Outside It’s Mandate.

That’s not malware. Malware would be akin to “installed plugin and my site created new spam admin accounts, mailed 10,000 people and ruined my life”. This bug sucks but it’s a bug.

I just added 4 subsites to my WordPress. This Plugin made it so that each of these new subsites could ONLY ACTIVATE 1 PLUGIN AT ONCE. It took forever to find the source of the bug – and I believe it’s because only 1 plugin was activated when I added a Group Order to these sites a few days ago.

Sleep is good but it is the weekend so if you don’t hear back from the developer soon please don’t be too disappointed.

That’s not malware. Malware would be akin to “installed plugin and my site created new spam admin accounts, mailed 10,000 people and ruined my life”.

No, that’s Spyware. Potentially even Virus… your definition is way off.

Malware is Malfunctioning Software, to the degree that “I activated the software and it caused my CPU to Melt”, or “I activated the software and it caused something to malfunction, even after uninstall.”

That’s an amateur claim, Jan, and worth the screenshot.

I don’t care if it’s the weekend. There is no “Complete Uninstall Guide”. Malware is Malware – this Plugin is causing damage even while deactivated – it’s getting Flagged.

In regards to the Plugin in the Referenced Scenario above Not Activating;

1. Deleting the Plugin and Reinstalling the Plugin DID NOT WORK.
2. Removing the Must-Use file from “mu-plugins” and deleting the Plugin Organizer Entirely DID NOT WORK.

This Plugin is not fit for Multi-Site – there’s an abundant lack of testing. For Single Site I’m not a candidate, but it’s probably fine…

I apologize for my negativity, but this isn’t working as advertised and is causing damage even after deactivation, uninstall, and step by step reverse settings change. So I can’t fix it from the front end, I actually have to open phpMyAdmin to start sorting through Tables and begin looking through WordPress Core Files to get my website functioning as intended – when all I should have to do is Deactivate the silly plugin.

Time to provide a COMPLETE UNINSTALL GUIDE. What did your plugin change, I need it off my platform.

After Complete Removal of the Plugin and it’s Must-Use Files (Previous Scenario), then Reinstall of the Plugin and it’s Must-Use Files – the original scenario of only being able to activate 1 plugin at once while Plugin Organizer is enabled is resolved.

Plugin Organizer is Network Activated, not Single Site Activated.

I still can’t activate a Plugin in my collection. I’m marking this topic as resolved, although I still need to scrub my entire site to resolve the other known issue plus likely numerous more caused by the plugin.

Fix your scripting – or Remove this Plugin from the MultiSite Compatibility list. I’m willing to bet I’m not the only advanced user to suffer this issue – and I hope others find this in their Google searches, as I did not. I looked in many other places before finding your Malware to be the culprit – it is currently acting as Malware, and remains to function as Malware on my MultiSite due to restriction of being able to activate a plugin. The only reason it remains is to study/examine it so that I can fix the issues it caused.

Goodbye.

Doctor,

Did you try deleting references in the database for Plugin Organizer?

…

Secondly, you might try NOT looking at Plugin Organizer as the issue.

Here’s why.

If you deactivated Plugin Organizer and/or deleted it MU plugin and the issues still persists then naturally you should look for another plugin to hold the issue that Plugin Organizer or multiple plugins coupled with Plugin Organizer caused. My point is, if Plugin Organizer is gone from your site and the issue is still there, then the issue should be something else. Plugin Organizer doesn’t create files that would be there after deleting but upon activation it is possible that a conflict occurred causing your issue.

…

Thirdly your definition of Malware needs renewed. Malware, the “mal” part actually refers to “Malicious” not “Malfunctioning”, and these are entirely different definitions.

More specifically Malware DOES NOT include software that causes harm unintentionally. This would include Plugin Organizer, as there is no intent for Plugin Organizer to do harm to your site.

By the wiki definition and history, Plugin Organizer is not Malware nor would WordPress condone Malware software.

A full Malware write up can be found @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware.

…

Lastly, Plugin Organizer was updated with its new settings pages about 2 months or more ago. When updating plugins you should be reading the changelog so you can have an idea of what to expect from the update. If not sure how the update would affect your site, then you should ask in the forum support, but before updating to potentially avoid something like this from happening.

Your right, I did type malfunctioning instead of malicious. Regardless;

“Did you try deleting references in the database for Plugin Organizer?”

I Intend to. I must seek out any tables it may have created/changed that I’m unaware of. Would be super helpful if I didn’t have to look through all the creators lines of code to do so. Considering the scenario the plugin isn’t 100% MultiSite ready. I shouldn’t have to completely uninstall and reinstall a plugin to get it to function in a Malware suggesting scenario. I’m not the only user who claims to have had database issues recently concerning this plugin. I believe other users suffering this issue are unable to pinpoint it – now they can!

“If you deactivated Plugin Organizer and/or deleted it MU plugin and the issues still persists then naturally you should look for another plugin to hold the issue that Plugin Organizer or multiple plugins coupled with Plugin Organizer caused.”

I just wish that were so. If you took the time to read the full evolution of the errors – you would know it WAS Plugin Organizer as the cause. I wouldn’t be posting otherwise, or making such bold claims – I’d sooner be editing/redacting my previous claims. The Plugin I could not activate in post #2, since reinstall of the plugin in post #7, will not activate when Plugin Organizer is Activated or Deactivated. The only way I can activate that specific plugin now (YITH WooCommerce Zoom Magnifier) is by Network Activating it – the only changes being made having been in or of Plugin Organizer.

“Thirdly your definition of Malware needs renewed. Malware, the “mal” part actually refers to “Malicious” not “Malfunctioning”, and these are entirely different definitions.”

I agree, I typed the wrong word. From now on, consider my use of the word “Malware” as more of a review of this plugins performance in a multisite environment as compared to the truest of definitions – as the plugins side effects suggest that of “Malware”. I’ll be using it much more frequently as time goes on; as reviews get written; problems exposed in SEO driven environments; as more multisite users spot this or issues and find the cause here instead of wasting money on security scans. As I said in my first post; “Fix the bug, or fix the claim. Clearly not tested enough.”

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I wouldn’t be here – pointing out an issue with this plugin, if it weren’t a positive scenario. I’ve read many angry posts from inexperienced users, always telling myself I’d not lose my cool. Plain and simple; THIS PLUGIN IS NOT FULLY MULTISITE TESTED – maybe in conditional scenarios; but those scenarios need to be listed, accounted for, fixes must be provided, is it single site activated, is it multisite activated, is there a switch that must be flipped, and an uninstall guide for complete removal.

So maybe I’m in the wrong for making references such as Malware. But I shouldn’t install a plugin that claims to be both functional with my Version Of WordPress and Multisite to find it’s causing issues Activated, Deactivated, Uninstalled, and additional issues when Reinstalled.

My original issue was resolved. I’m not opening a new ticket. I’d sooner fix it myself and publish accordingly. In the meantime; the creator has time to either fix the issue, fix his claims, or do nothing at all. I’m indifferent.

The plugin is 100% multi site compatible. I personally run it on several. Thousands of others run it with no problems as well. When someones site messes up and they react the way you have its usually because they are running a caching plugin or some other plugin they don’t fully understand. If you go to the settings page you can return the order of plugins to the default. Then you can uninstall the plugin through the wordpress admin and it has functionality to remove everything that it installs. Did you try any of those obvious steps?

Yes Jeff, yes I did. I even took the time to write out my actions of troubleshooting this plugin on the front end.

If you go to the settings page you can return the order of plugins to the default.

Is this a requirement for complete uninstall? Where is it documented?

I believe this plugin is conflicting with writes to the database somewhere – in my case on a New SubSite Install. I made it clear that I created a Plugin Load Order Group dedicated to Network Activated Plugins, and this group was created after Activating only 1 SubSite plugin not added to said group; which I believe to be the source of my original issue (now resolved). I’m going to try and replicate the issue in the near future in a documented fashion, after repairing my ability to activate a single plugin involved with the original troubleshooting process.

I fixed my original issue – yet you haven’t provided the changes this plugin makes to the database. I figure I should start by cleaning out my plugins via phpMyAdmin in the Options Table and allowing WordPress to try to re-write again – I imagine that’s involved in the block.

I also haven’t received a complete removal guide. What other tables did your plugin create and modify? Or will I be forced to scrub your plugin for those?

I’m an advanced user, so of course I took on the simple approach first. I’m telling you there’s a bug – and I mistook it for Maleware. Maybe your plugin functions fine on sites that have all of the plugins they desire to be activated – then adding this plugin and it’s group function – as this is a final “speedstep” in WordPress site creation.

I wouldn’t be making a big deal out of this issue if I wasn’t positive your creation was the culprit. So confident, infact, I continue publishing on the topic in hopes other users suffering similar issues understand it’s this plugin and not have to spend money on professional security services.

I’ll look into this soon enough.

Only one table is created. It is named wp_PO_plugins. If your prefix is wp_. There are also some options added tot he wp_options table and some capabilities given to the admin role. Clicking the uninstall link on the wordpress plugin page removes all of that from your database.

I have come across an issue while developing the new version. WordPress saves the network activated plugins to the active plugins array and adds them to the end of the array. I have a function that corrects this but it is only called when you visit the plugins page of each individual site. Since the functionality to order plugins was on that page I needed to move that to the new ordering page. I have fixed this in the new version. I also put a check in the activate function to fix this ordering issue when you activate plugin organizer. I’m getting close to releasing the new version. Maybe you can beta test it for me to see if your problem has been corrected.

First of all – I want to apologize for my behavior. Sometimes I get super stressed out while on week long site builds or upgrades – not at any point have I ever believed that your plugin isn’t fantastic – just in this scenario, really had me pulling hair in a situation where I believed my site was infected as a side effect of the plugin. It’s a good plugin, been working with it since I started using WordPress.

Your fix may help resolve the issue. I’ve re-triggered my original issue multiple times with plugins that had additional subplugins — Jetpack being a good example. Completely removing P.O. and Putting it back removes the issues, assuming the multi-use plugins like Jetpack are activated beforehand.

I also noticed the SubSite Plugin Activation issue;

but it is only called when you visit the plugins page of each individual site

I can confirm this. If I don’t mess with any plugins on other sites while I’m encountering the issue – they aren’t affected. It’s only when I’m accessing the Plugins Page or Activating/Deactivating plugins on the subsite I’m working on at the time.

ex; The issue returns – I uninstall P.O. – I access the plugins page on another subsite, they remained intact. If I mess with plugins on the other subsites, the issue spreads to those subsites.

In reference to being “Unable to Activate a Plugin even after uninstall” – this might be YITH. I’ve found that it’s a conditional scenario to the plugin on my build. I simply can’t activate YITH Plugins at all while functioning regularly. I can, however, activate YITH Plugins when I can Only Activate 1 Plugin At A Time (Original Issue). Which is interesting; but I’ve decided to work with alternative plugins, and is likely to be completely unrelated.

I’m open to beta testing, and your continued support with specific table references will have me changing my rating. These specifics help me better understand of what’s going on – in such a case where if I need to make custom modifications myself, I would have. Thank you.

**edit**
– I run with the standard wp_ table prefixes.
– I’ve removed Group Plugin Orders altogether since I first ran into the issue. Every time I Activate – I leave the plugin as-is, the Single Plugin Activation (Deactivating the Previous Plugin) issue remains without groups.