After updating stories, content is lost in backend (still shows in frontend)

Looks like WAF wasn’t on to begin with, so we can rule that out as a factor.

Re-reading your original post again, particularly this bit:

But in the last few weeks we’ve discovered when we go back in to make an edit (and then update the story) we’re having an issue where the story still displays perfectly on the front end, but will look like this on the back end:

What might be happening here is that story data is wiped out from the post_content_filtered column in the database.

The editor stores the story data in two columns:

1. post_content: contains the HTML markup that you see on the frontend
2. post_content_filtered: contains JSON data used for creating the story in the editor

If another plugin is messing with that post_content_filtered column, that would explain why you see that blank canvas in the editor while the story still works fine on the frontend.

Could you perhaps take a look at the wp_posts database table and see if that column is not empty for any posts with post type web-story?

Update: we added a CORS configuration to S3 at Media Clouds suggestion, and now we can see images, but we still can’t edit them.

What are our next steps?

> but we still can’t edit them

Do you mean you can’t edit the images or can’t edit the story itself?

Is this the same “story appears as single blank white page” issue you mentioned earlier?

Yes, that is correct. We can see and edit the images.

We cannot edit or update a published story. When we do, the whole story appears as a single white page.

Please let me know if you would like us to attach screenshots.

Just to clarify- we can make an initial edit, but when we click ‘update’ and then go back to the story it appears as a single white page.

Thanks for sharing this information.

It does indeed sound like there is some conflicting plugin messing with post_content_filtered in the WP database (see my reply above). Could you check the database table as per my reply?

Also, what’s your user role in WP?

I’ve identified the plugin causing the issue, it’s PublishPress Revisions.

I opened a ticket with them to begin troubleshooting, but if you have any suggestions from your end, please let me know.

Awesome, glad to hear that you’ve found the problematic plugin! We can also follow up with their engineering team on GitHub.

Update: I heard back from PublishPress, they said:

The Free version of this plugin supports the WordPress core. For data stored in extra plugins like this, you will need the Pro version: https://publishpress.com/revisions

I upgraded but am still experiencing the issue.

Did you hear anything from them on GitHub?

That’s an interesting answer, given that the post_content_column is a native WordPress core component.

I reported this to them on GitHub the other day and they were very quick to submit a code change to fix the issue. I assume it will be part of their next release.

Unfortunately I am not familiar with that plugin at all to verify whether the issue works, but perhaps you could. You could grab their current 2.5.5-beta from GitHub: https://github.com/publishpress/PublishPress-Revisions/tree/development (just needs a composer install).

Alternatively, I’ve uploaded it to Drive here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J_UxJ6thw2lmwYcg_LJHuhI-SWVXmGgJ/view?usp=sharing

(PublishPress team member here)

Thanks for the help on this @swissspidy

We’ve been talking with @byjillee about this and have sent him an updated versions of Revisions Pro that should fix this.

Thank you, @stevejburge!

@byjillee With this issue resolved from the PublishPress side, I’ll mark this topic as resolved. Feel free to open a new support topic if you continue to encounter issues, or reopen this topic and we’d be happy to assist. Thank you!