Not excluding categories after upgrade

Nikki,

Could you please try to resave the options in the settings page. It should resave the exclusion category settings. WordPress had modified the way terms work in an earlier version and many were splitting resulting in different IDs. Top 10, as a result functioned well in most cases but failed in a few in previous versions.

I was able to fix that in this version, but it did cause issues where in some cases the IDs mismatched. Resaving the options is a way to fix this settings.

Another option would be to reset to default options and then add your settings again.

Hi WebberZone,

I resaved my settings, and the non-recipe posts disappeared from the lists, so that issue seems to be fixed, thank you.

However, the number of posts being shown by the shortcode dropped to 2 (having dropped one non-recipe post), despite being set to limit=”5″.

I increased it to 6, to get it to display 3 posts on the front page.

Is this connected, or is it a separate problem? And any ideas on how to fix it?

Thanks,

Nikki

I just updated a new version of the plugin. Are you using 2.2.3 and noticing the above?

Yes, I just updated to 2.2.3 and I’m still seeing the problem.

I tried using both of the “merge” options in the reset section to no effect. I’d rather not have to reset the plugin fully if it means I lose my counts.

Is there anything else I can try?

Thank you.

Can you please check and let me know exactly what you’re using:

a) Shortcode right now?
b) Settings in the Exclusion box

You shouldn’t have to reset any counts.

OK, so the shortcode on the home page is:
[tptn_list limit="6" heading="0"]

and the entire contents of the “Exclude Categories” field in the settings is:
adventures

You can see the results of these settings on the home page of my site here
https://www.eatingvibrantly.com/

Does it create the right number of posts i.e. 6 if you remove the exclusion settings?

Could you please try this shortcode?

[tptn_list limit="6" heading="0" exclude_categories="XX"]

Replace XX by the category ID for adventures

If I remove ‘adventures’ from the “Exclude Categories” field then it correctly shows 6 posts (of all types) via both the shortcode and the widget.

If I add exclude_categories=”96″ (for ‘adventures’) to the shortcode, it correctly displays 6 recipe-only posts, so that makes it work as it should.

However, the widget in the right-hand sidebar is now displaying non-recipe posts. I’ve reduced the number to “4” so it doesn’t list the home page as “one of my top posts”.

So we’re definitely getting closer, thank you.

What do you want me to try next?

I’m not sure if it is possible to do this, but do you think you can install Query Monitor and see what queries are being passed in the case of the widget / shortcode.

The way the exclude categories works in the Settings page and the Shortcode are different. The settings one modifies the main SQL query directly while the Shortcode one fetches more posts and then at display stage eliminates them.

Am curious as to see what the query (mainly the LIMIT clause) results in when you use both settings above.

With nothing in “Exclude Categories” and exclude_categories=”96″ in my shortcode,
[tptn_list limit="6" heading="0" exclude_categories="96"]

this caller:
get_tptn_pop_posts()+

runs this query:

SELECT ID, postnumber, post_title, post_type, post_content, post_date, post_author, SUM(cntaccess) as sumCount
FROM wp_top_ten_daily
INNER JOIN wp_posts
ON postnumber=ID
WHERE 1=1
AND blog_id = 1
AND wp_posts.post_status = 'publish'
AND dp_date >= '2015-08-24 0'
AND wp_posts.post_type IN ('post', 'page', 'attachment')
GROUP BY postnumber
ORDER BY sumCount DESC
LIMIT 20

If I add ‘adventures’ to “Exclude Categories” and take it out of the shortcode, this is what runs:

SELECT ID, postnumber, post_title, post_type, post_content, post_date, post_author, SUM(cntaccess) as sumCount
FROM wp_top_ten_daily
INNER JOIN wp_posts
ON postnumber=ID
INNER JOIN wp_term_relationships AS excat_tr
ON (wp_posts.ID = excat_tr.object_id)
INNER JOIN wp_term_taxonomy AS excat_tt
ON (excat_tr.term_taxonomy_id = excat_tt.term_taxonomy_id)
WHERE 1=1
AND blog_id = 1
AND wp_posts.post_status = 'publish'
AND dp_date >= '2015-08-24 0'
AND wp_posts.post_type IN ('post', 'page', 'attachment')
AND wp_posts.ID NOT IN (
SELECT object_id
FROM wp_term_relationships
WHERE term_taxonomy_id IN (106) )
GROUP BY postnumber
ORDER BY sumCount DESC
LIMIT 20

Is that what you wanted to see? If not let me know which query and which caller you want me to share.

Hi,

That is exactly what I wanted to see. What is the output that you see when you run the above query in phpmyadmin?

There is one thing funny that I notice.

In your shortcode, the ID is 96 which is likely to be the term_id while in the settings, it is 106 which is the term_taxonomy_id

I have a feeling this is causing the mismatch. The term_taxonomy_id is more specific and unique combination i.e. it’s a category with the name “adventures”.

I’ve run the query against my database, but I’m not sure what results you want me to share.

One things I notice is that the list of posts is different, and the total count is also different.

What you just told me that the list and count is different. I think it is because of the term_taxonomy_id being different.

I’m going to need to do a bit more digging / code changes on this one. Would you be comfortable trying a beta version of this with the changes?

Yep, I’ve got a dev version of my site that I can test things on, so let me know when you’ve got something for me to try.