Tim M

Update: Although we have positively identified server caching issues with respect to dynamic content, as uneconomically described earlier, we my have been chasing a red herring. We are employing a popular security plugin, WordFence. When visiting our meetings list page this morning in the Edge browser and encountering the same issue, I opened up the developers console and low and behold, the console detected a 401 Denied for admin-ajax.php. Did some research and followed suggestions to put WordFence back in “learning mode”. Kind of makes sense, since the 12 Step web app was introduced well after WordFence was configured and had been monitoring the site for weeks. Can’t be certain that this will remediate the issue but promise to report back, either way. I know Josh is taking a break and we don’t consider this a show-stopper, since it appears to be intermittent. Just wanted to add another long-winded clarification to all of this. Thanks for your indulgence!

I forgot to add that we are actively looking at finding an alternative to GoDaddy Manged WordPress. This is not necessarily meant to disparage that company but if you do a query in your search engine of choice, you will encounter ample evidence that it is NOT a good platform for hosting dynamic content.

We are having a similar issue at akronaa.org. When it occurs, the visitor must make their selection and then refresh the page. I have an earlier post up about Managed WordPress server caching that touches on this. The problem here is that it does not happen consistently, which is why we have not bothered you to investigate something that you probably wouldn’t even be able to debug. Furthermore, we are convinced this is not a bug in the 12 Step Meetings application. It is either a hosting issue and/or a WordPress issue. When the issue occurs, which is always the first time the meetings page is loaded in the morning, a manual flush of the server cache in the WordPress admin console resolves it. Unfortunately, it is only for that day. I would be curious as to what hosting service and WordPress plan the original poster has employed. Just wanted to see if our similar experience might shed some light.

Thanks for the quick response. Yeah, problem is you can’t even turn the caching off or control it in any fashion in GoDaddy’s Managed WordPress. They’ve even banned cache control plugins. I understand the arguments against not leveraging caching for websites, but for pages with truly dynamic content these limitations are frustrating. And this certainly has nothing to do with the plugin, as it is performing beautifully. Just a hosting limitation and nothing more, I guess. I probably should have posted this as a non-support topic.

It sure is! Many thanks and we can consider this resolved!

Thank you! I’ll say it again – very nice job on this plugin! I developed the meetings lookup functionality on our live akronaa.org site but it has become apparent that we are in need of a more elegant and compact solution and this fits the bill. We are looking forward to retiring the current functionality and going live with 12 Step Meeting List this weekend.

Sorry, I need to amend this. It is the Open and Closed types that disappear when new criteria are selected. The Men and Women types continue to display. Hope I am not muddying up the waters here!

Well, I certainly didn’t mean to create a firestorm, here. I apologize if it appears I was disparaging the product itself. I am sure that it is a very good offering, as is confirmed by the reviews. All I was looking for was a fully functional sandbox environment so that I could confirm that the product was capable of doing what my clients were asking for. In hindsight, I should have just listed my questions in the appropriate section of the forum and left it at that. Mea culpa! ??

Thanks for responding. I guess all I am saying is that a list of features is one thing. Being able to at least demo the plugin hands-on before buying is another. I can’t even begin to evaluate the product without seeing how the back end works. Most plugins I end up purchasing for my clients allow at least some functionality in a free/trial version. My client, who is going to be using the booking function, wants to test drive it before she buys. Without that capability, I will be forced to look into other offerings. Wish I didn’t have to do that because she thinks this one would be a good fit.