W3 total cache disaster

Hello @elsdeniep

I am sorry about the issue you are experiencing and I am happy to assist you with this.
Well, this is a very peculiar issue.
Can you please share the website URL? Are you able to re-install W3 Total Cache and once re-installed, disable the Object Caching? Make sure to delete the /wp-content/cache/object/ folder and once you disable the Object Caching in W3TC make sure to save all settings and purge the cache.
Can you also please make sure that you are not using some other plugin that has Object Caching as a feature?
Are you on VPS or shared server and also, what is the name of the hosting provider?
Thanks!

-SOLVED-

Hi Marko,
Thank you for your quick reply.

I have followed the instructions from this site: https://wp-rocket.me/faq/w3-total-cache-fixes/

With that help, we have managed to reinstall W3 from a zip file. After that we have unticked all W3 functions and flushed and purged the cache.
Luckily that helped since from that moment we could install plugins again.

Also, we have deleted advanced-cache.php, db.php, wp-total-cache-config.php by hand.
This time, it did not break the site and all appears to be well!

Best regards,
Els

Hello @elsdeniep

Thank you for the information.
First of all, I am glad that the issue you had is resolved even if the article that helped you is basically trashing the W3TC.
Nevertheless, please let me know if there is anything else I can assist you with regarding W3 Total Cache in the future.
Thanks!

Hi @vmarko
Please don’t be offended. The article is not particularly negative about W3.
In fact the article states:

W3 Total Cache is a great caching plugin but it’s not always easy to fix caching problems when you are new to the world of WordPress load times.

Best regard,
Els

Hi @vmarko ,
I have the same issue as elsdeniep had, but W3TC doesn’t appear anymore in the installed plugins section of WP backend. How can I uninstall W3TC then? Our URL is https://www.n-tec.eu
Thanks

Reainstall W3tc and than follow instructions in https://wp-rocket.me/faq/w3-total-cache-fixes/

Hi @elsdeniep , I read this already, but W3tc wasn’t uninstalled correctly in our case. It simply disappeared from the plugins section. Should I delete some files or directories manually before installing newly? Or can I just install the new one over the old?

Hi, I’m having a similar issue with W3TC, but I’m trying to get it working as it’s highly recommended.

I’ve tried following the instructions on the wp-rocket.me link above including manually removing the specified files from our server, and then attempting to reinstall and activate a fresh version of W3TC. I’ve done this whole process twice, and yet I’m still seeing this code in the wp-content>advanced_cache.php file:

if ( !@is_dir( W3TC_DIR ) || !file_exists( W3TC_DIR . ‘/w3-total-cache-api.php’ ) ) {
if ( defined( ‘WP_ADMIN’ ) ) { // lets don’t show error on front end
echo sprintf( ‘W3 Total Cache Error: some files appear to be missing or out of place. Please re-install plugin or remove %s. <br />’, __FILE__ );

We’d really like to get W3TC working, but as it is it’s just returning a bunch of 520 errors (which Cloudflare diagnosed as caching related). Besides, I can’t trust it’s working properly with the code above in the file.

Any guidance would be most appreciated!

Hello @jessicakoerner

I’ve replied to your email.
Please follow the steps provided.
Thanks!