WP Statistics and a caching plugin
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The plugin doesn’t register visitors if there’s a caching plugin enabled.
I have selected the “Use Cache Plugin” option. In that section, it says to:
To register WP-Statistics REST API endpoint ( wp-statistics/v2 ) , go to the Permalink page and update the permalink by pressing Save Changes.
So, I went to the permalink page and pressed save changes.
I’ve cleared the cache. I’ve cleared all the cache multiple times. I’ve tried different caching plugins.
The cache plugin that I’m currently using is WP Fastest Cache.
I’ve done some searching and found nothing but other people asking this same question. I did come across a REST API plugin that y’all sell for like $6. I’d be more than happy to pay that if it meant this plugin would work.
Thanks in advance.
Edit to add more info:
I should also mention that it works if I actually disable the cache plugin option. It works just fine, but throws an error message notification on every page. So, with the cache option enabled it doesn’t work. With the cache option disabled it works – but throws up notifications about there being a caching plugin installed and telling me to enable caching.
The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]
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WP statistics plugin has a design error. In general, in order to collect statistics, it is necessary that each page view is recorded in the database. This can be done in two ways: either when displaying the page, update the database immediately, within the same request, or by including an additional javascript on the page to send statistics data to application to be recorded. This is how google analytics works, as the GA application runs on a different server than wordpress itself.
In the case when the statistics database is on the same server as wordpress, the first approach is less overloading this server, because the request is single and this is how this plugin commonly works. However, with caching plugins the page is read out of cache memory, the generating page script is not run and the statistics would not be able to update the database. Therefore, wp-statistics, when working with caching plugins, uses the second method – an additional database update request. Up to this point, everything works fine. The error is in what exectly is sent with that request. Unlike google analytics, this additional request does not contain the data of the user who sends it. The author of wp-statistics took shortcuts and instead of generating this data with a javascript in the internet user’s browser, he calculated all of them earlier, wrote then to the generated page, and placed them in the server’s cache. As a result, each visitor who visits the page sends data to update the statistics, but it is not his data, but data of the first visitor, who caused the page being generated and cached. The wp-statistics plugin receives this request, verifies it, and concludes that it has already been registered, and therefore rejects it. The request loads the server, runs a computation, and then throws it into the trash bin.
For verification see any cached page: it contains something like<code><script>var WP_Statistics_http = new XMLHttpRequest();WP_Statistics_http.open('GET', 'https://.../wp-json/wp-statistics/v2/hit?_=xxx&_wpnonce=yyyy&wp_statistics_hit_rest=yes&browser=...&...¤t_page_id=...', true);WP_Statistics_http.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json;charset=UTF-8");WP_Statistics_http.send(null);</script></code>All these data should be calculated at users browser and not cached at server side.
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