edstevensdba

Thanks for the lead. When I saw what the ‘fix’ was doing – and before making any modifications – I just queried the wp_users table to see if perhaps there might be a username different than I had been using. (I’m a Oracle DBA by trade, just no experience with mySQL). Sure enough there were two usernames. When I logged in to the site with the “other” name, making a good guess on the password, I had the dashboard I expected. It’s been so long since I originally set up the site that I didn’t (and still don’t) remember creating two users. Any idea what the “wrong” one (let’s me log in but doesn’t give me full control) might be for?

Any any event you gave me the lead to resolve the problem. Thank you very much.

A bit more background that may or may not bear on this. I had the site login recorded in RoboForm, and I lost access to RF when Firefox upgraded to v57. I had not recorded my logon anywhere else and after a couple of password guesses, selected the “lost password’ option and reset it.

I’m not sure what you mean by a “multisite”, so I’m guessing a single site. I only have one domain name.

Hmm. How could I not be logged in as an admin? URL is https://<domain>/wp-admin. It asked for my username and password. Once there it show things only an admin should see, including “Edit Profile”.

Hi, @hailite – so what is the “latest” version, that you promise will fix the problem? After restoring my site from a backup that pre-dated the corrupting upgrade, I disabled the plugin until I’m sure that it is safe to re-enable and upgrade. Right now it is at v1.2.1, and prompting to upgrade to v1.2.3.1. I don’t want to re-enable and upgrade without some confidence that this versio – 1.2.3.1 will not take me down again.

FWIW, and to bring some closure to this, I was able to recover my site from the cPanel with R1Soft Restore Backup. Had to open a ticket with StableHost, and they pointed me to a video tutorial. It turned out to be easily and painless, but not knowing exactly what was what, I’d not have risked it without the assist.

@lanesharon – your experience pretty much mirrors mine. I vaguely remember getting a notice that it had been installed by my hosting provider (Stablehost). I didn’t have any problems until I allowed an update about a week ago. I immediately started getting ““Fatal error: Unknown: Cannot use output buffering in output buffering display handlers in Unknown on line 0” “. Couldn’t even get back to my site as the admin. Asked about it here, but never got a response. I was finally able to recover my site and get back up with help from my hosting provider, recovering the entire site from a backup at the cPanel. As soon as I had it back up I disabled the plugin. I see all the rave reviews, but can’t tolerate. I came here just now hoping to find some more discussion and possible real resolution.

FWIW, I configured my site to take a weekly backup, and I have the latest backup prior to the clobbering of the site (sent as an attachment to an email). So it seems that I should be able to recover using that backup at my cpanel on the host. But I’m afraid that I am going to need some guidance on how to do that.

catacaustic – I’ll give that a try. Thanks.

Thanks. That helps.

The ‘subscription form’ is coded to accept an email address and then send that address to a specified provider to be added to a mailing list. Regardless of what you call it, that is what is happening.

And the mail icon? How is it coded? When I click on it, it takes me to the SpecificFeeds website, where I’m prompted to enter an email address.

So what’s the functional difference? They both end up providing an email feed service with an email address to add to a mailing list.

There’s no magic here, it’s all just code that gets executed when you click on an area of the screen that has a pretty little picture. The only difference is how the user interface is presented, and the fact that there is no provision for the blog owner to select their own feed provider without hacking the code. I’m fluent in several computer languages, but PHP isn’t one of them.

So I went ahead and installed on my live site after playing with it a bit on localhost. In working through the config, I get down to option 8 — show a subscription form. And I see it creates a separate widget – just a text widget with code pasted in, exactly like I did with my current widget and code supplied by MailChimp, only you provide the code to use SpecificFeed. So what’s the difference between that and what the mail icon itself really does? And if it really isn’t different, why can’t that functionality be put into the mail icon?

BTW, I’ve looked at about a dozen other similar plug-ins and still like this one the best. Instead of nagging for 5-star ratings and tie-ins with other providers (like SpecificFeed) I’d rather just have the option of a paypal donation. I’d willingly donate to any plugin or theme creator that produced a useful product.

As part of the configuration with MailChimp, they provide the code to paste into a text widget. Seems that the same thing could be accomplished with the configuration of an icon within a plugin. Configure the icon by accepting the necessary code (pasted in as text) as provided by the mail list provider.

John, Thanks for the feedback. I didn’t know the email could be disabled since it is labeled “mandatory”. I deselected it, fought my way through all the nags (really? I’m still testing it out, you want a 5-star already)? and it appears to be gone. I see one review (SundayCrepes, Aug 3, 2015) that said they did same and it came back.

When you say to upload an email icon .. are you talking about integrating it into the lineup with the others? I already have a widget to collect email subscribers, and could leave that in place, I guess, but it would be nice to have it as just another icon alongside the others.

I’ll tell you what I find a bit off-putting about the current situation. First, the forced use of a particular provider. Second, the lack of information available about and from that provider. Even after blindly signing up for an account — no faq, no tour, no contact info, no support links, no way to evaluate if this is really what I want.

Why can’t the email icon here just accept the code to work with whatever provider one wants, they way virtually all of the other ’email icons’ do? What’s with the forced tie-in with SpecificFeeds?

I can buy that. ??

Thanks again for the response.