The plugin that never dies?

  • Resolved boardboss

    (@boardboss)


    1 year, 5 months ago

    After determining this plugin did not suit my needs, I searched for any type of option I needed to select before completely uninstalling the plugin. I did not find any, so I deactivated and deleted the plugin. When I tried to access my site, I was met by the challenge as if the plugin was still installed and activated.

    How can I COMPLETELY delete this plugin from a site?

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Plugin Author Bill Minozzi

    (@sminozzi)

    Hi BoardBoss,

    WordPress takes care of delete the plugins, not us.

    If WordPress fails to delete, something is wrong with your server. Maybe file permissions, for example.
    You can delete it manually by removing the “recaptcha-for-all” folder in your plugins directory. Typically, it’s located at /wp-content/plugins.

    Try also empty the cache of your browser.

    Cheers,

    Bill

    Thread Starter boardboss

    (@boardboss)

    Interesting. I have examined several plugins before, and they all had at least some code to be used during the uninstallation process. I will spin up a new server right now with a bare minimum WordPress installation, then install only your plugin, activate it, uninstall it and let you know what happens.

    For the record, this site has no file/folder permissions issues. I hit the site with a completely different device and browser after I uninstalled your plugin, and I still saw the challenge screen. That should no longer show if the plugin has been removed.

    Thread Starter boardboss

    (@boardboss)

    I spun up a new server, added WordPress (clean) via the automated install process, assigned the site a domain name expiring soon (), configured Cloudflare, and added your plugin. Initially, the site displayed nothing, as expected. After configuring your plugin and activating it, the site message appeared. Again, as expected. Then I disabled your plugin as shown here: https://prnt.sc/AsasgQLa44TX, saved the settings and then hit the site with Chrome (incognito mode) again. I still see the message. So I used Edge, which has never seen this site, and the message still appears. This is all with the plugin disabled within the plugin itself.

    I then deactivated your plugin from the WordPress admin panel and checked again with Chrome (incognito) and Edge. message still appears: https://prnt.sc/4yJ3sGLtIrFR

    This is the behaviour I reported the first time for an established site that has never had any problems up until I tried your plugin.

    Thread Starter boardboss

    (@boardboss)

    I thought I understood enough about install/uninstall, although I wanted to be sure. I reached out independently to two different developers who have created several plugins for me in the past. Both told me almost exactly the same thing.

    In the simplest possible terms, the plugin has code in its installation section that tells WordPress which database tables to create, etc. When uninstalling the plugin, the plugin must tell WordPress which tables to drop, and other specific data to delete from the database. Otherwise, WordPress would not ‘know’ how to delete the plugin.

    To confirm this, I edited the file uninstall.php in your plugin package, then reinstalled the plugin. This time, when I deleted your plugin, the value value for “recaptcha_for_all_settings_china” was deleted from the database because I added “$wptools_option_name[] = ‘recaptcha_for_all_settings_china’;” to the file uninstall.php.

    As I mentioned in my other ticket, your plugin DOES NOT completely uninstall itself from WordPress. Some plugins offer an option to remove all traces; however, yours does not.

    Plugin Author Bill Minozzi

    (@sminozzi)

    We discussed this in the following thread, and you mentioned that the issue was resolved, which made us happy.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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