Bug? String combine field suddenly not working

Thank you so much for the suggestion. I followed your instructions, and unfortunately the problem is persisting. No matter what I place in the “Template” field, that exact text is displayed in the table instead of the proper data filled out by the participant.

To troubleshoot further, I decided to create a new field nearly identical to the “Full Name” string combine field I had set up previously. The only thing I did different was to name it “full” instead of “full_name”. Interestingly, this column remains blank, no matter what I type in the “template” field — whereas the original column always displays whatever I’ve typed into the “template” field (with the exception of the participants who entered their information a week or more ago. Those names do display properly).

I hope that makes sense. In short, it still seems to me that there is some kind of bug going on with the string combine function, since I can’t seem to get a newly created string combine field to work properly either. Of course, it’s always possible it’s something specific to our website or just something super obvious I’m missing!

Thanks so much for your help.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by joymorin.

Thanks! I turned on the debug log, change me the String Combine template field to “[city]”, and here’s what the log shows:

Log file initiated at: February 7, 2022 12:24 am UTC
[02/07/22 12:25am UTC]
PDb_Manage_Fields_Updates::update_fields update fields: UPDATE <code>wp_participants_database_fields</code> SET <code>title</code> = 'Full name', <code>group</code> = 'admin', <code>form_element</code> = 'string-combine', <code>help_text</code> = '', <code>options</code> = 'a:0:{}', <code>validation_message</code> = '', <code>default</code> = '[city]', <code>attributes</code> = 'a:0:{}', <code>signup</code> = '0', <code>csv</code> = '0', <code>readonly</code> = '', <code>sortable</code> = '0', <code>persistent</code> = '' WHERE <code>id</code> = '26' /* From [www.a2pianoteachers.com/wp-admin/admin-post.php] in [/nas/content/live/a2pianoprod/wp-content/plugins/participants-database/classes/PDb_Manage_Fields_Updates.php:191] */
[02/07/22 12:26am UTC]
PDb_List::_setup_iteration list query: SELECT p.id, p.full_name, p.full, p.city, p.zip, p.openings, p.travel_to_homes, p.online_lessons, p.demographics_taught, p.musical_styles FROM wp_participants_database p ORDER BY p.last_name ASC
[02/07/22 12:26am UTC]
PDb_List::_setup_iteration list query: SELECT p.id, p.full_name, p.full, p.city, p.zip, p.openings, p.travel_to_homes, p.online_lessons, p.demographics_taught, p.musical_styles FROM wp_participants_database p ORDER BY p.last_name ASC
[02/07/22 12:27am UTC]
PDb_List::_setup_iteration list query: SELECT p.id, p.full_name, p.full, p.city, p.zip, p.openings, p.travel_to_homes, p.online_lessons, p.demographics_taught, p.musical_styles FROM wp_participants_database p ORDER BY p.last_name ASC

Meanwhile on our website, you can see how the “Full Name” column shows literally “[city]” for a number of participants’ names.

I went ahead and reinstalled the plugin following your instructions. Strangely, the problem is persisting exactly as before. The original “Full Name” String Combine column shows whatever exact text I have entered into the template field (with the exception of the older entries, which show the names correctly). I created a brand new String Combine field called “test,” and this one displays blank no matter what I type into the template field.

If I can’t get the String Combine feature to work, I might have to just revert to using two separate columns displaying first names and then last names.

If you have any other suggestions, please let me know! Thanks so much for the support you’ve provided.

I discovered something else strange that may or may not be related.

I just realized that when new participants sign up, I am not receiving an email notification saying so. I thought this function was working properly during our building/testing phase while our website was still on our web designer’s servers, but perhaps not. I just did a test and found that when I am logged into WordPress and submit a new signup, I DO receive an email notification as admin and I also received the “You’ve been added to the Find-a-Teacher page” email.

But when I submitted a new signup when I was NOT logged into WordPress, I did NOT receive an email notification for that signup. Nor did I receive an email saying, “You’ve been added to the Find-a-Teacher page.”

In both cases, the test participant info DOES successfully submit and appear in the table on the website.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by joymorin.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by joymorin.

I reached out to our web designers and got them to add caching page exceptions for the necessary URLs. This has indeed solved the issues with the email notifications sending. Thanks!

Still no luck getting the String Combine fields to work properly. If we’re run out of ideas for troubleshooting this for now, I will just go ahead and opt for two separate columns to display the first names and last names.

Thanks so much for your time and prompts replies, and of course for the great plugin!