Uninstalling

  • Resolved AWOL

    (@awol)


    1 year, 2 months ago

    HI,

    Firstly I want to say that I think my issue derives from user error rather than your plugin, but there is a caveat to that below. I have been having a very odd issue with my site for a few months now that involves 404 errors, so a few weeks ago I found your plugin and thought it might help in terms of the users although not solving the underlying issue, so I installed it and created a custom 404 page. Unfortunately, although it did what it was supposed to, it didn’t help (not the fault of the plugin) so I deactivated and deleted it. At this point is the caveat – I don’t know if I didn’t spot it, or it wasn’t there, but I recently discovered several files and database tables related to the plugin still there that should have been deleted, so is there an option to delete all this stuff in the settings?

    This leads me on to why the above might be important – the custom 404 page I created, while it is still in my list of pages (I kept it for possible future use), should not appear any more, but it is, so is there some file I have missed, or some alteration made to a WordPress, theme or other file that is still calling the custom page? I don’t really want to reinstall the plugin if there is not an option to get rid of all the stuff it installs when deleted, but the screenshots you provide don’t show whether that is there or not, so if the option is there I can reinstall, check the option, then uninstall, but if it is not I need your help to find and eliminate all traces of the plugin, whether that is a list of places and file names or something else. Ideally all plugins should, by default, delete everything they install when deleted, with an option to keep stuff, rather than the way so many do of leaving stuff behind by default. As I say, this might be that I just missed the option to delete everything, so I am not (necessarily) criticising your plugin. I hope you can help.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Author Aaron

    (@aaron13100)

    Hey,

    The plugin doesn’t delete the tables when you delete the plugin. You can delete them manually using phpMyAdmin by clicking the table name and then clicking “Delete the table (DROP)” under the “Operations” tab, or if you can execute sql directly you can type “drop table wp_abj404_logsv2” (etc) for each table, or you can run

    SELECT CONCAT('DROP TABLE ', table_name, ';')
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_schema = 'your_database_name' AND table_name LIKE '%abj404%';

    which will give you a list of the commands you can run to delete the tables.

    Ideally all plugins should, by default, delete everything they install when deleted

    Yes. I think you’re right. I should fix that.

    the custom 404 page I created, while it is still in my list of pages (I kept it for possible future use), should not appear any more, but it is
    so is there some file I have missed, or some alteration made to a WordPress, theme or other file that is still calling the custom page?

    I think what you’re getting at is that since the tables were left behind and they should have been deleted, maybe the plugin wasn’t deleted entirely and is still running somehow. That’s definitely not what’s happening. If the plugin was uninstalled then it’s not running anymore. You can check that the files were deleted from the file system if you like, e.g. in the /website/wp-content/plugins/404-solution directory. It should either be empty or not there at all if the plugin was uninstalled. The plugin doesn’t alter any files or tables except for its own. I think that’s called a virus if it does that. ??

    My guess about your custom 404 page still appearing is that although the plugin doesn’t reference it, something else is causing users to get to that page. If you want to keep the page but don’t want people to see it, you could change its status from “Published” to “Draft” (for example).

    If people are still being forwarded to that page and they shouldn’t be, perhaps a different plugin is causing that. You could disable all plugins and see if the issue still happens or not. If not then you can reenable each plugin one by one to see which one is causing that particular issue.

    Thread Starter AWOL

    (@awol)

    Hi @aaron13100,

    Thanks for the quick reply, that helps a lot. I had already deleted the database tables and checked as best I could, and as far as what I said about altering other files, I did find an entry in the wp_options table which is what caused me to wonder. As far as dealing with why the page is still appearing, making the page draft was to be my next move, but I have scoured my site and I can’t find anything that is referencing it, and I have cleared caches so many times I have ruled that avenue out. This issue though is not caused by your plugin clearly, so thank you and I hope I can track what is going on as well as deal with the original issue that caused me to seek out your plugin originally.

    Thread Starter AWOL

    (@awol)

    Hi @aaron13100,

    Just an update, in case you were interested – I made my custom 404 page draft, and cleared caches, but it is still appearing. I have no idea how or why. I am already in contact with my host and they are as mystified as I am. Next step is to delete it completely but I suspect that won’t make any difference either.

    Plugin Author Aaron

    (@aaron13100)

    Well, let me know if you figure it out.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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