Magic Backslashes Appearing from Nowhere.

Everything I am reading about this magic quotes issue is all from between 2-4 years ago… would that even still be an issue now? I am trying every fix I read of, but none of them are working… and I am thinking it is because all these fixes are so old.

I found some newer posts with the same issue, so maybe not.

Also, I physically see these backslashes in the posts when I open them to edit them. If I’m understanding the magic quotes issue correctly, the backslashes occur when the page is parsed by the server?

Sounds like your host has enabled magic quotes in the php.ini. PHP 6+ doesn’t use them IIRC.

See if they’re enabled (99% sure they are) make an empty file, put this in it:

if(get_magic_quotes_gpc())
	echo "Magic quotes are enabled";
else
	echo "Magic quotes are disabled";

and call it test.php and stick in the docroot of your server.
If they are enabled (99% sure they are) send a polite email to your host and ask them to disable it.

Nailed it! They are definitely enabled. I will contact them right now about it. Hopefully that will fix it!

Thanks!!!

Ok, so my host turned off magic quotes, but the issue is still very present.

Is there a reason that those backslashes would have somehow been added to the database itself? Because I see them if I go to edit the post.

And if that is the case, is there an easy way to purge those from the database itself rather than editing 500+ posts through the WP interface?

It doesn’t make sense to me why these slashes are now in all the posts… and why this is all happening now. This site has been running fine since like… 2005.

Regardless, if I need to bite the bullet and start manually fixing all these posts, then I’ll do that. It seems like there is an easier way to fix them though.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I manually fixed the posts on the main page, but am still looking for help on how to fix the rest of the site’s posts.

If for some reason you need to see the posts that are affected, they are from page 2 and beyond.

I hate to bump the thread, but I still cannot find any solution to this, and need help figuring it out.

I feel like I am a pretty savvy guy, and I am at a loss. My site has been screwed for over a week now with little help, and even less luck.

I looked in the wp_posts > post_content tables in the database with phpMyAdmin, and can in fact see that all these backslashes are in the database for every entry.

Is there a way to pull all these slashes out of the database without manually editing over 500 posts?

I feel like I am essentially talking to myself here. This is frustrating.

My hosting company walked me through the process of exporting the database, doing a mass search/replace, and importing it back into a fresh database… then re-linking the wp-config to the new database.

Doing a search/replace for those backslashes fixed all the broken images/video embeds, but it created a new problem… where line breaks get converted to /r/n by WordPress. So now everywhere there should be a break for paragraphs, it just says rn or rnrn.

Unfortunately, I can’t use the same search/replace to just add the backslashes to every instance of rn… because when words like “burning” are used… it changes them too, so they read as “bur

ning”.