qlddrones

*BUMP*

Since last posting, I created a test site (debug.mydomain.com) which is a carbon copy of the files from test.mydomain.com (where plugins still install OK) and the database from the prod site. Plugins installed in debug without any issues.

It’s really quite bizarre. I decided to point the primary domain at the debug folder and left everything else the same. I could see it was pointing at debug because the admin pages used the debug prefix. Plugins install fine.

I then edited WP-CONFIG and changed all the DEBUG pointers to WWW and tried again. Plugins don’t install. This is the same set of DEBUG folders, same DEBUG database, just a different domain prefix. All file and folder permissions are the same.

Has no-one got any ideas what could be causing this? It all seemed to start with a failed automatic update of the WP core, but I really don’t know if that was the cause or just the first symptom. My hosting support and my premium theme support are both looking at it, but so far no-one seems to have any real idea what’s causing it.

My hosting server support seems to think this problem is caused by HTACCESS permissions being set at 0444. I can’t see how that could be the case. Why would updates require write permissions on HTACCESS?

Maybe then I need to change the question. Is there perhaps a way to restrict the firing of plugins to only those pages/posts that actually need them? This would help a lot. When I think about it this doesn’t seem very likely, but I think it’s worth asking the question.

BTW I have unlimited storage, so it’s not that.

Could this be related to zip.so PHP errors? I can’t find anything else that looks relevant.

@jack randall, yes good point. I am using WP4.0.1 with a premium theme called GeoTheme and a lot of plugins. 41 active, 27 inactive. Why?

– Serving ads in widgets
– Affiliate link cloaking (trying to back out of that one)
– Anti spam
– Minification
– Custom permalinks
– Yoast analytics and SEO
– iThemes security
– Jetpack (though not using much of it now)
– Jquery Pin It button for images
– HTML sitemap
– Local currency conversions (travel website with lots of cost articles)
– Mappress for location maps and cluster maps
– NoFollowr for tidying up external links
– Relevannsi to improve user search results
– Roots plug to minimise HTML code
– Simple Author Box to display guest author details
– Weather Underground to display weather forecasts
– YouTube because WP YouTube shortcodes don’t seem to work

Most of the inactive plugins are those I use occasionally for specific purposes like:

– Search and Replace
– 7T File Manager
– Adminer
– Bulk Delete
– Copyscape for guest post checking
– Image Optimizer
– etc.

I have had GZ compression enabled on the server but saw no difference in page loading times or response times. I’ve used various CDNs in recent times like Jetpack Photon and Cloudinary, but I’m currently using Cloudflare.

@leejosepho, I am using a child theme – should have mentioned that. I will have a look at WP Crontrol (not that I need another plugin LOL).

As expected, no response. Did you manage to get around it?

It’s OK, I’ve found out now this is a function of the theme I’m using. Still don’t know why but at least I know what.

No, not Super Socializer generating this message. Is there a way to force WP to display which plugin or component is generating a warning message?

Sorry Maiki, the last problem was of my own making! There was a test redirection to and from the same page still active in HTACCESS. When I deleted that, the full redirection from https://www.travelnasia.com/thailand/bangkok/don-mueang-airport/(.*) to
https://www.travelnasia.com/thailand/don-mueang-airport-bangkok/$1 started working just fine.

So now I just need to try that pattern with some of the other URLs that are failing and see if I can fix them too.

Thanks for your help. I’ll only come back if I hit another wall.

Regards, Tony

Sorry for confusing you earlier. Let’s try this at a very basic progressive level and see if the issue can be debugged.

I’ve now created a bare test site (all plugins disabled except Redirection and Transposh, all existing redirects removed, clean HTACCESS).

To test the problem, I have created a redirection from https://test.travelnasia.com/test-rewrite/ to https://test.travelnasia.com/write-a-review/ which works just fine but fails when “/?lang=zh” is added to the source URL.

I created another regex redirect as per your instructions from
https://test.travelnasia.com/test-rewrite/(.*) to https://test.travelnasia.com/write-a-review/$1 and that passed on the lang parameter to the destination URL.

With that working ok, I created a third test redirect from
https://test.travelnasia.com/test-rewrite/(.*) to
https://test.travelnasia.com/destination/bangkok/don-mueang-airport-bangkok/$1 and that also works OK.

I then created a new regex redirect from
https://test.travelnasia.com/thailand/bangkok/don-mueang-airport/(.*) to
https://test.travelnasia.com/destination/bangkok/don-mueang-airport-bangkok/$1 which also works fine.

But when I create the same redirection in my live site
https://www.travelnasia.com/thailand/bangkok/don-mueang-airport/(.*) to
https://www.travelnasia.com/thailand/don-mueang-airport-bangkok/$1 it redirects to the home page, with the language parameter intact.

I don’t know why it does this because
https://www.travelnasia.com/test-rewrite/ to https://www.travelnasia.com/thailand/don-mueang-airport-bangkok/$1 works just fine.

I can only imagine that some other redirection is interfering with it. But I cannot find any redirects that refer to either of these URLs except the two above used for testing.

When I look in the Redirection log, I can see the call to “test-rewrite” but I cannot see the call to “thailand/bangkok/don-mueang-airport” anywhere, which suggests that the Redirection module is being bypassed on this call? Maybe something else is over-riding it?

I’ve even tried creating similar redirects in HTACCESS and they also don’t work. I really don’t know where to go from here.

After more experimentation I seem to have a rule that works, but I don’t know if it’s the best way to achieve what I need.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^test.travelnasia.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^lang=(.*)$
RewriteRule ^test-redirect/$ https://test.travelnasia.com/destination/hanoi/hanoi-vietnam-destination-guide/$1 [L,QSA]

Is there a rule I could use, for example, that says for any redirect that has “?lang=XX”, append “?lang=XX” to the destination URL? That way I could just write my redirects normally and let the rule worry about the language query.

Also, I can’t seem to create redirections at all so far. I don’t get any error message but I’m wondering if your plugin requires particular permission settings on the htaccess file? Mine is 0644.

I’m not sure what the problem here is. I changed the post URL back to /chiang-mai-tours/ hoping WordPress would automatically redirect it and it does, but not with the ?lang=zh suffix attached.

I have deleted the old redirections and added a new one:

/blog/chiang-mai-tours/(*) redirects with regex to /chiang-mai-tours/$1

But it doesn’t work at all. At least the endless redirection is fixed but that doesn’t help all that much as this page gets a lot of Chinese search visits.

Weirdly, when I changed the redirection to:

/blog/chiang-mai-tours/?lang=zh redirects without regex to /zh/chiang-mai-tours/ it now redirects correctly to https://www.travelnasia.com/chiang-mai-tours/?lang=zh

But that only corrects the problem for lang=zh, not other languages (e. lang=de)

By the way, I deleted the first one and the second still doesn’t work.