Error with 3.4.2.1 version

Hello @sherissa_r, and @bwolary.
Firstly we apologize for all the waiting time.
We are still unable to reproduce any error/issue with any of our test CSV or Excel files nor in the Lite Version or in the Premium Version.
All our previously linked Tables are working and we can also make new Tables.

So, in order for us to help debug what might be happening on your specific file(s) or Tables, can you please show us more details, what happens exactly and if you can send us the source File, it seems it mostly happens to some users for specific Excel files.

1. When it comes to reverting your installation to any previous versions, you can download previous versions on this Advanced Page, scroll down and you will find this section :

Just please Note what it says about using previous Versions. They may not be secure or stable, so they are used only for testing purposes, not recommended for a live/production Site.
So you can download the previous version and check if the same file works there, versus how it behaves on the new Version.
–
If that is the case, as it happens for @bwolary, we can inspect your file in order to reproduce and ‘catch’ the error on our end.

Could you please send us your source Excel File/the one with the issue, which can be used to reproduce this behaviour?
If it does not contain any sensitive Data, you can just upload it to weTransfer and send us a download link here;
Or if it has any sensitive Data, please open a Private Pre-Purchase Ticket on our?main Support platform here,?then our Agents can take your file and we can perform testing when we reroll to the previous Lite Version, and if we can notice any difference with the latest Version.
–
If you can also please provide the detailed steps, best will be if you can record a Video, and the same applies depending if it has Sensitive Data – if not, you can send it here;
Or if it has any sensitive Data showing in the Video, you can just send that in a Private ticket to our Main Support.

Our Developers are not going to change this new logic we added which checks your source File for issues with new error handling, so if you need us to determine where the issue is coming from for new ( and future versions), you can send us your source file(s) so we can tell you more details if it might be some formatting issue, or one or more Headers being blank or anything else on the source file.

Thank you.

Hello everyone;
We are just following up once more to clarify everything about this issue and to show you a way how you can ‘downgrade’/reroll to an older Lite installation version if you wish.
( We do not recommend using older versions on Production Site version, though)
–
We will elaborate in more detail on everything on this subject :

In the new plugin versions, our developers introduced improved error checking for Tables linked from source files and improved error handling messages.

Our Plugin is based on libraries from DataTables JQuery Plugin, it follows some of their main limitations – one of them is not being able to have empty/blank Header name in any Column from the linked Table’s data source file.

Previously, (?on Lite version?2.1.71?or older)?we had some specific User cases where they were able to have one or more Columns with empty Header Names on the source files for linked Tables ( such as?CSV/Excel)?and that somehow worked?– even though?it should not?– our Plugin was intended like that from the start, to not allow any?blank Headers on the Table’s?source data.

From now on – that will no longer be possible, so please check your source file ( Csv/Excel) and make sure that each column has a Header Name.

We will not be changing this error checking because it needs to exist for some other important new Plugin functionalities.

I am sorry if that causes an inconvenience.

If you can’t isolate the issue on your own, our Support can help you try to isolate what the issue is with the source File.

If you can’t find any empty Headers, can you please send us your source File?

If it does not contain any sensitive data, you can wrap it inside a zipped folder and upload it anywhere like weTransfer/GoogleDrive and send us a download link.

Then we can inspect your file and reproduce the error on our end.

Or, if your file has any sensitive Data, please open a PRIVATE pre-purchase ticket (which doesn’t require a purchase code) and send your source file to our Agents there – they will try to debug it as quickly as possible.

–

If you don’t wish to debug the issue with your file, another option will be to downgrade your Lite Plugin version to an older version which does not have this error checking.
You can download version 2.1.71 version here.
Just scroll down to the “Previous Versions” section.
Please note : Previous versions of plugins may not be secure or stable. They are not recommended for use on production websites.

Kind regards.

Hello everyone,
We are happy to report, our developers made a new fix for this issue.
We will share the instructions on how you can edit our Lite Plugin’s code to apply the fix.
Find this PHP file via FTP or your Hosting File Manager or the Plugin File Editor, in the path :
../wp-content/plugins/wpdatatables-lite/source/class.wpdatatable.php.
Then around line 1754 search with “CTRL+F” for this line :

$headingsArray = $objWorksheet->rangeToArray('A1:' . $highestColumn . '1', null, true, true, true);

Under it, add this :

while (!end($headingsArray[1])) {
    array_pop($headingsArray[1]);
};

So in the end, that part of the code should look like this :

$headingsArray = $objWorksheet->rangeToArray('A1:' . $highestColumn . '1', null, true, true, true);
while (!end($headingsArray[1])) {
    array_pop($headingsArray[1]);
};

Save changes, and purge cache of your Site, then try to load the existing Table/ or link a new Table from the same file and now it should work without throwing the error about empty Headers.

We have one sample Excel from one of our users who sent us a file, we can confirm it works when this fix is applied on both Lite and Premium Plugin versions.
Before the fix – on our latest Lite/and Premium plugin versions, this file was throwing that error “One or more columns does not have a Header”

and after the fix applied, it is not throwing any errors.

So we tested the fix works on the files we tested so far, but we can use your help if you can send us your files to make sure.

This fix should be included in the next Update, but we can’t guarantee the exacet ETA because our QA Team is still conducting final tests to ensure there are no negative effects before it is added to the Plugin’s core and we wish to try to make sure it works on all the files and use-cases as it should be.

So if you can try this fix, then let us know if any of your source files (CSV/Excel) are still not working with the existing or new Tables.

If that is the case, can you please send us your source files here so that our developers can work on an improved fix?

As mentioned above,
If the source CSV/Excel does not contain any sensitive Data, you can just upload it to weTransfer and send us a download link here;

Or if it has any sensitive Data, please open a Private Pre-Purchase Ticket on our?main Support platform here,?then our Agents can take your file and we can perform testing in order to help our developers build an improved fix that would work on all your files.

Let us know how it goes, we will keep following up.
Thank you.