Changes keep reappearing

Hello Ammaletu,

Thank you for trying our plugin.

Quick question: are these notifications that keep reappearing about WordPress core files or other files?

P.S. we are in the process of completely rewriting this plugin. The new and upcoming version will be way better in terms of performance, UI/UX and reliability. It should be ready in a couple of weeks so we are limiting the troubleshooting of issues on the current version of the plugin.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Hi,

the reappearing changes are both core and plugin files. I think the easiest case are the deleted files. I removed a plugin, Website File Changes Monitor told me about it, and I told the plugin that I did this on purpose (by clicking “Mark as read”). So what should clicking this button actually do in the database?

Looking at my database, “Mark as read” seems to always delete the rows from “wp_wfcm_file_events” table. This seems a bit strange, because how would the plugin then know that this message should not be shown again? And why is there an “event_read_status” column if the entry is deleted anyway?

Skimming through the code, I’m a bit unclear about how this is supposed to work. For example, where is the result of the scan saved? There needs to be a record of the current state of all files to be able to compare against with the next scan. Otherwise, the plugin should not know about files I removed days ago anymore.

Thank you for the detailed feedback Ammaletu.

Based on what you are saying, it seems as if the scans are unable to complete correctly (this is one of the issues on why we are re-writing the plugin) because the same changes are being reported over and over.

Can you please:
1. Enable WordPress debug
2. Run a scan
3. Once it is finished, send us the debug file.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

I enabled the debug mode, both the generic one and the plugin’s, and ran the scan. There were no errors logged and the plugin debug log looks ok.

I think I found the cause, though: I actually forgot to mention that I have a WP multisite install. Looking at “WFCM_Monitor::check_changes_complete”, I can see that the plugin looks at different options, but never goes into the “! empty( $freshest_files )” part of the function. I looked at the database in the “wp_sitemeta” table, which is where “site options” are stored, and can’t see an enry by the plugin. Can it be that the plugin queries the sitemeta table, but actually never writes to it? A couple of lines down I see a call to “update_option”, which probably should be a “update_site_option”?!

Sorry for the late reply Ammaletu.

I have escalated this to the developers and we’ll get back to you shortly. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.

Hello Ammaletu,

We’ve discussed this issue and there are certainly some required fixes. However, we are currently working on a complete rewrite of the plugin. By rewriting we mean – we are starting from scratch, and we are not using any of the current code.

So we can definitely troubleshoot this issue, but to do so, this will take away time from the development of the new plugin, which is just a few weeks away.

So at this stage we recommend to stop using this version of the plugin, keep it deactivated, and wait for the next update. I understand this is not the ideal answer you were waiting for, however, this is the best thing we can do at this time if we want to release the new update ASAP. By the way, the work has already started and within a few days we will the beta version ready.

If you’d like to try a beta build, please drop us an email at [email protected].

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. We look forward to hearing from you.

Hi,

This bug is still exists. If I mark all notifications from deleted files to read, next day it is notify me again…

Hello David, please refer to my last reponse on this thread in regards to this issue. Thank you.

Hello Ammaletu,

Today we have released update 2.0 of this plugin. This is not an update on the previous version, but a complete redesign of the plugin. This version is actually a new plugin – we have “thrown away” everything from the previous version of the plugin and completely started with a clean slate.

I’d appreciate if you update your copy of the plugin and let us know what your thoughts are on this new plugin.

Thank you in advance for your time and for trying the plugin.

Have a great day.