Upgrading to WP RSS Aggregator 4.14 Breaks Website

Upgrading to 4.14 basically broke my site as well. Numerous 502 time out errors and very very slow page load times. Reverted to 4.13.2 but still have the time outs and crawling page loads. Deactivating the plugin returns site to normal.

@davet I solved it for me. I discovered that the plugin had created more than 20,000 copies of the “Default” feed template. (I was getting a similar error as the one you posted above, so I figured something was going on with templates.)

I solved this by running the following WP-CLI command:

wp post delete $(wp post list --post_type='wprss_feed_template' --format=ids) --force

Of course, in order for the wp_feed_template post type to register, the plugin has to be activated. So my site was pretty much dead as I did this, and it took I think 45 minutes for the command to delete all the duplicate feed templates. So I started it about 1:30AM in order try not to aggravate my users.

I hope this helps you or anyone else reading this with a similar issue. If you don’t have access to WP-CLI then contact your host for help.

@davet The issue you are experiencing is caused by a corrupt version of the plugin. You should be able to resolve the issue simply by deleting the plugin and re-
downloading the latest version.

@maximledoux Thank you for sharing.

Those that do not have access to WP CLI can deactivate the plugin and ask their host to help them run a database query that deletes posts with post_type equal to wprss_feed_template, and then delete the orphaned meta data from the postmeta table. The plugin can then be reactivated once a fresh copy of version 4.14 has been downloaded.

@mekku what would be the meta key in wp_postmeta?

Also, for those using WP-CLI to delete and reinstall wp-rss-aggregator, be advised that WP-CLI may just use a cached version of the plugin that you previously downloaded (and thought you had deleted) rather than downloading a fresh copy. So you might want to actually go to the plugin site and download it from your browser.

@maximledoux All our plugin’s meta keys are prefixed with wprss_. However, we strongly advise not deleting everything. A better way would be to use a query that specifically targets post meta that is not attached to an existing post. Here’s an example.

DELETE meta
FROM wp_postmeta meta
LEFT JOIN wp_posts post ON post.ID = meta.post_id
WHERE post.ID IS NULL

Do NOT copy and paste this query. We advise asking your host for help with this matter as your table names may be different.

Thanks, @mekku. Very prudent advice in regards to the the query. I believe there are various plugins including wp-sweep that people can use to clean up their database as well. (With the usual caveats of making a backup first, etc., etc.)

So what is the solution if I can no longer get the plugin to activate?

@djdefenda is this still an issue for you at version 4.16?

It took a bit of hassle restoring backups and then I had to to delete all posts with post_type equal to wprss_feed_template in my website’s database – there was close to 20,000 templates.

There was a php error after that and templates would not display but it’s seems fine now thanks.

Glad that it’s looking better for you now, sorry for all that trouble.