Database used in PHP code is outdated in PHPMyAdmin

  • Hope this is the right forum – I didn’t find one for databases.

    I have an intermittent problem. I have PHP code that checks a member database for expiration dates and sends a reminder when the expiration date has arrived. This code has been working for several years but now fails intermittently. For example, of two member records with the same expiration date of 12/30/2017, one is found and one is not.

    The code which checks the ‘dateexpire’ column:

            $members = $wpdb->get_col( "
            SELECT um.user_id
            FROM {$wpdb->usermeta} um
            WHERE um.meta_key = 'dateexpire'
            AND DATE(um.meta_value) = (DATE_ADD(curdate(), INTERVAL +0 DAY))
        ");

    I inherited this code from a previous webmaster and I admit I don’t fully understand what it’s doing. It seems to be referencing the usermeta table, however the wp_users table with the dateexpire column is in a custom database, separate from the default wp database. When I look at the database in PHPMyAdmin to check the values, I log in with the same username and password used by the PHP code. But when I look at the wp_users table, it is way out of date – the last update was in 2014 and I know that many updates have been made since then. I can export the same table from my PHP page and I get the current values.

    Is there a hidden version of MySQL databases?

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
  • Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    Nothing hidden, at least not by default. So, same user and password. Are you sure it’s the same DB defined as ‘DB_NAME’ and host defined as ‘DB_HOST’? Are you looking at the right WP installation? With redirects, the root installation is not necessarily the one being served. If you were to make a new post, will it appear at the end of the posts table?

    Even if that all checks out, it’s possible for custom code to override where data is queried from. User table queries can be intercepted and sent elsewhere. There’s a number of ways to do this, so it’s not simple to find such custom code. It should be in a custom theme or plugin, but not everyone follows good practice, so the code could be anywhere.

    There are even several ways to connect to other DBs, so searching for telltale code might not be very fruitful either. If the snippet you posted is successfully getting users from an external DB, then the custom code is swapping different connection objects somewhere, because $wpdb is normally the WP global DB connection object. If it’s connecting elsewhere, the original connection object is likely saved as a different object and gets swapped back in after the user query. Searching for custom code that does this will help you find out where to start debugging, or at least get you to the right DB.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
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