dday61

If the url for the featured image is in wp_posts>wp_content for the row (in the first div I think) it should be possible to create a wp-postmeta row. In my case the image will always be in folder wp-content/uploads.

The mishandled image reference can then be stripped out of wp_posts>wp_content.

I’m not sure anything else would be required to reinstate the featured image in its proper place.

Thanks for that. I wasn’t aware of the iCalendar Validator and your reply prompted me to give it a try.

The problem seems to be something to do with Line Endings. I’ve now got a file which validates ok. I haven’t imported it into the test system, yet, but at 22:30 something it’s time to pack up for the evening.

I’ll get back to it tomorrow.

I set up a demo system on a stand-alone server. Once the demo was finished I tried to recreate the problem – and couldn’t. So I went back to the live system and it had gone away there too!

I’m assuming something to do with caching (maybe in WordPress, maybe on the server, maybe in the browser).

In short – don’t know with certainty what caused it, but it’s gone.

Don’t you just love computers.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by dday61.

I found that. Don’t leave the cursor in the import text box. Tab out of it and the button becomes active.

In the early days my site went through a lot of organic growth – partly because I was new to WordPress, partly because my site is a community news and information hub which my visitors can influence. This included trying out a lot of plug-ins that I ended up not keeping for one reason or another. Consequently, when I first installed Media Library Folders the media folders were very untidy. That, after all, is why I installed MLF.

Ok – I know. Don’t test on a live system. I was changing from Microsoft to Linux on my development hardware so had a learning curve there too (switching from WAMP to a LAMP stack, re-learning UNIX/LINUX etc). It all takes time. Also, as it was new it wasn’t really a ‘live’ system before it was made public. It’s taken time to get it to the ‘this is too dangerous to dabble with’ stage.

After I installed MLF I went through a gradual clean-up and re-ordering process. During this I found it well worth keeping a control panel window open so I could check that moves and all file/folder deletions were actually happening – and, if not find out why not. I tried to let MLF do all the work, only intervening if MLF didn’t do what I anticipated. Problems I gradually became aware of included files with names that had not been sanitised and stray thumbnails left over from pre-MLF days. It’s seriously irritating when MLF shows an empty folder, then gives you a couple of screenfulls of thumbnails when you do a final sync (to be sure) before deleting the folder!

My general observation – not ‘scientific’ or forensic debugging by any means – leads me to believe that most of the occurrences I saw of MLF not doing what I anticipated was due to orphan thumbnails and the unsanitised filenames that had crept into my media folders before I installed MLF.

I would anticipate that if you know WordPress you will probably install MLF or some other media manager plug-in before you start adding any media. You will start with clean media folders. If, like me, you’re at the start of the WordPress learning curve you’ll start with its core media management and, if you have a very graphic site, find that the core media management is not really very scalable. After some time the media folders will end up full of junk that isn’t easy to get rid of. You’ll then install MLF (or something similar) and hope that’ll fix it. In practice, though, it’ll take time and effort to make sense of that untidy uploads folder. For now, the free version of MLF works for me. It’s nice to know there is a way forward if/when I need more out of it.

Don’t despair. Data cleansing may seem like a daunting task that you’ll never complete (like eating an elephant). You can do it in small chunks – one bite at a time. That’s how to eat an elephant.

I recently started using it and find that after reorganising the confuddle left by the core system (and a few forays into media plugins which turned out to be less helpful than they promised) I have been able to organise the layout to a more logical structure.

uploads
— ads (media used in the few ads onsmy site)
— embellishment (mainly logos, badges and decoration)
— events (contains images only used in events)
——- 2018
———– 01
———– 02
———– …
— magazine (archived pdfs of my magazine’s print edition)
——- 2018
———– 01
———– 02
———– …
— news (news items)
— pages (images used in static pages)
——- 2018
———– 01
———– 02
———– …
— places (images of venues used throughout the site)
——- BlandfordForum
——- FontmellMagna
——- SturminsterNewton

The biggest, busiest part of my site is a calendar which aggragates events for my part of the world so it gets very cluttered with ephemeric media. It also has a news section and local archive so also has a requirement for a growing collection of static media.

I give each media item a human friendly name and upload it to where I think its logical home should be. When I add it to a post/page/event I can search for it using the name I’ve given it, and check the URL in the media selector to confirm that I’m using the one from the right folder.

I tend to clear down the events calendar to get rid of past events. So – as it’s now well into 2018/02 I know I can delete all media for 2018/01 events without accidentally deleting places images which will be needed again (if not already in use), media used on static pages, media used in the news section etc.

I don’t use the premium version of the plugin. The free version is working well enough for me at present – but it is early days yet.

Hope this helps.

I’m keeping an eye on folder contents via the cPanel as I’m moving stuff around and using MLF to delete junk. It’s going ok now as long as I avoid those folder names. Once the pre-MLF folders (and junk) are gone my securities will be substantially smaller.

I think the way to go is build a debugging copy of the site, check it has the problem, then deactivate plugins one at a time (checking for the folder name problem as I go).

That’ll be some time away as I have other things to do for the next couple of weeks.

One thing I’m wary of is that the site is on a server controlled by a host who specialises in .gov.uk sites. There might be something wacky going on with that, so if I can recreate the problem on the same server as the live site, I’ll try to recreate it with the same data on a local server.

Another thing I really should do is ditch the plugins I no longer need. Being a WordPress noob means the site tended to grow organically as I progressed through the learning curve. It’s time for a tidy up (hence attacking the rampant images – start shovelling at the biggest pile).

If/when I find the root cause I’ll let you know.

Thanks for all your help – and apologies for the confusion. I almost always find debugging IT problems ends with a facepalm moment …

Update: I’ve repeated similar tests, this time setting MLF to ‘Copy’ and dragging/dropping a known good image into each folder.

The results are the same as above.

This would explain how MLF worked for a couple of days befre I hit on the bad folder name.

D.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by dday61.

Ok – Perhaps not enough debugging. The problem hasn’t gone away. I’ve now done a little more digging, and find the following:

Folder Name : Result
————-+————————————–
a : Image uploads ok via MLF
ad : Image uploads ok via MLF
adv : Image greyed when uploaded via MLF
adve : Image uploads ok via MLF
adver : Image uploads ok via MLF
advert : Image greyed when uploaded via MLF
adverti : Image uploads ok via MLF
advertis : Image uploads ok via MLF
advertisi : Image uploads ok via MLF
advertisin : Image uploads ok via MLF
advertising : Image greyed when uploaded via MLF
advertisingx : Image uploads ok via MLF
====================================================

If I’m right it would seem there are some reserved folder names (and I guess various forms of ‘advertising’ would make sense). There may be others. Perhaps it should not be possible to create folders with those names – and that ‘Check For New Folders’ should give a warning if it finds them.

D.

Hi Alan

I think what threw me off the scent was that MLF worked perfectly for a couple of days before it imploded. I didn’t even run Media Cleaner during that time.

I am, very much, a WordPress noob but it seems to me that:

• there’s a conflict somewhere,
• deactivating Media Cleaner caused it to reset something, or,
• deactivating Media Cleaner allowed MLF to get past wherever it was breaking.

Interesting. I’m just pleased it turned out to be easier to resolve than I originally feared.

Regards

D

Update: I deactivated another ‘media’ type plugin (Media Cleaner by Jordy Meow) and MLF appears to be working normally again. Since I shouldn’t need Media Cleaner any longer (the free version is highly indiscriminate) I will delete it and mark this issue closed.

Hopefully the thread may help others solve similar problems.

Hi Riya (?)

I’m using Apostrophe for my site (fippennynews.co.uk – a magazine/news site and growing community information hub).

It’s simple to use and responsive. I’m (painfully) aware that much work is still needed on the main menu but I’m pleased with it (though I say so myself).

If cost is a factor, Apostrophe is free. I’m quite sure the header and footer coud both be tailored as you need with plugins (note that I would NOT consider myself a WordPress expert so I could very easily be wrong).

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by dday61.

The security of my site has improved beyond belief since I upgrades to 7.0.1. No-one can use it – not even me.

It’s all very well “focussing on security fundamentals” but bear in mind that performance and good GUI design are fundamentally important too.

Before I read the comment, above, I was planning to sit out the 7.0.1 settling in period then retry Wordfence. I’m now more inclined to find an alternative.

With respect, if a user is removing a plug-in the developers cannot know whether it is being removed permanently, or removed to be reinstalled as part of addressing a problem (in which case deleting the data might, or might not, be the correct thing to do).

In some cases (e.g. an event calendar with – possibly – 100s or even 1000s of events) removing the database tables might be the last thing a user wants to do, and could well be the last thing an unsuspecting and annoyed user ever does with any of that developer’s products.

To my mind it is probably better to leave the tables in place to be cleaned up by some clean-up plug-in at a later date. At best the plug-in deactivation (if possible – I’m not a plug-in developer) ASK the user. A setting is fine too, but that presupposes the user will actually find it (yes, my site has a few disused tables that I’ll have to clean up some day).

It’s a matter of experience. Learning how different developers do things a little differently. Some will delete the data on uninstall, some will leave it, and some will give you the option with a setting or a question at deactivation.

I know one thing beyond all reasonable doubt. I dread to think how much I’d have to pay for commercial software that does half of what free WordPress and its free plug-ins does.

I’m an AI1EC user.

The Previous/Next event links are part of WordPress’ standard functionality – not AI1EC’s. This means that the order you get is the Published Date order, rather than the Event Date order.

For my site’s visitors this means that the Previous/Next links are confusing so I used some custom simple CSS to hide them.

On my site events are very ephemeric so another idea might have been to take a year off the event date and use that as the Published Date. I didn’t experiment with this but it might be worth giving it a try. One possible problem is that you might need to use CSS to hide the Published Date (something else I did on my site as I found it too easy to confuse the Event Date and the Published Date). Also – you’ll probably run into problems if you schedule events for future publishing. When the event is published it will be out of sequence for the Previous/Next links.