Functional Plugin with Major Issue on Uninstallation Leading to Broken URLs

  • Wojciech

    (@pwojtek)


    1 year ago

    I recently utilized Permalink Manager Lite on my WordPress site and was initially pleased with its performance. The plugin functioned seamlessly, fulfilling its intended purpose without any noticeable issues during its active use. However, I encountered a critical problem upon uninstalling the plugin.

    The uninstallation process resulted in all URL slugs on my site breaking, leading to widespread 404 errors. This issue has significantly impacted the user experience and the overall functionality of my website. I attempted to resolve the problem by rebuilding the custom permalinks, which is typically a reliable solution for such URL issues in WordPress, but to my disappointment, this approach was unsuccessful.

    Although the plugin operates effectively while installed, this severe issue on uninstallation is a major concern. I strongly urge the development team to investigate and rectify this flaw. Future users should be aware of this potential risk when considering uninstallation.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
  • Plugin Author Maciej Bis

    (@mbis)

    Hi @pwojtek,

    I apologize for the inconvenience and understand your motivation. Sorry for the lengthy response, but I wanted to give you the full picture.

    The main idea behind the plugin was to allow full customization of WordPress permalinks beyond what the built-in permalink system offered. As a result, I needed to build a customized algorithm that would not depend on native rewrite rules but rather on the custom permalinks array stored statically in the database.

    To sum up, the plugin has two major components:

    1. One of them allows you to modify and save custom permalinks in the database.
    2. The second helps WordPress to load from DB and detect these custom permalinks.

    I addressed this on both this website (in the FAQ section) and permalinkmanager.pro.

    Let me illustrate this with a brief analogy. Let us say that someone suffers from high temperatures in his home and decides to install air conditioning. After installation is complete and the temperature reaches the desired level, one choose to take the air conditioner out of the house because it is too loud. Will it come as a surprise if the temperature rises and the problem reappears in this situation?

    Simply said, in order for the custom permalinks to work correctly, the plugin (more specifically, the detect function that is part of it), must be activated. Currently, the WordPress core codebase itself does not recognize custom permalinks controlled by any plugin. This is true for all permalink plugins, not just Permalink Manager.

    After deactivating the plugin, you can use the following code snippet if necessary. This is a very simplified version of the detect function described above.

    https://gist.github.com/maciejbis/4539bac135d30e8c2e375b513b46db82

    It allows to redirect custom permalinks to their canonical URLs (based on WordPress inbuilt rewrite rules) in order to prevent 404 errors.

    If you need any clarification, please contact me directly via email.

    Best regards,
    Maciej

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
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