Problem when filtering attributes: 6.3.x breaks things

Hello,

Here is the context:

• I use a filter plugin, not WC’s filtering widgets
• I updated to v6.3.1 on a staging site and let it do the DB upgrades it needed
• I ran some tests, but didn’t see the following point and, too bad for me, I upgraded WC on my prod site…
• Customers sent messages to our support team to complain that, on many categories, when filtering on attributes and that result has multiple pages, they get a “no product” answer page when they select another page

Of course, I searched and did trial/error investigations.
Here is what I found:

• v6.3.x came with a new function and a new table to offer attributes filtering. (OK, I knew it and ran some tests, but not good enough one, obviously!)
• Upgrading WC to 6.3.x forces the lookup table generation
• And it seems that just that (re)generation forces use of this lookup table, even if the option Woocommerce > Settings > Products > Advanced > Use the product attributes lookup table for catalog filtering. is not checked…
• Lookup table generation wasn’t enabled by default, but I had to check, save and uncheck it in order for Woocommerce not to use it!
• Note that when regeneration in processing, everything is fine (so I though at first that it was needed and something went wrong the first time), but finally I saw that when the process ended, my attribute filters were broke again…
• After disabling (as stated above) this option, I made a new staging site to dig this problem and found that on my prod site the process end before processing all products, but without any error!
• On my staging site, it seems that once the lookup table is up and running, with all products processed, things work fine.
• I came here, of course, and saw that many others had similar problems. I tried every “solution”: upgrade WC DB again, delete WC transients, delete all transients, regenerate lookup talbe again and again… And did stop all that when I discovered that WC on my prod site did not process half my 5000 products when (re)generating lookup table and didn’t throw any error/warning message at all and used this partial table no matter what (i.e. option not checked)

Finally, I would say that this function is not mature:

• Not enough debug/error info,
• Generating the lookup table should not force WC to use it (and the option is not checked!)

And here is my personal solution for now:

• Check / Save / Uncheck all options under Woocommerce > Settings > Products > Advanced to make sure WC doesn’t use the attribute lookup table (and for now it looks as if WC doesn’t schedule lookup table regeneration – I hope I make no mistake here!)
• Continue to rely on my filter plugin that has been using its own attribute indexes with succes for some time now

Now, I hope my description is clear, and will help Automattic team to find and treat those problems coming from this not-so-tested brand new function…

I have no grief: you do great job most of the time and I trust your production in general. But when you make such mistakes, it hurts… really bad.

Keep on the good work ??

• This topic was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by madmax4ever.