Empty "plugins" box on admin dashboard after internet cut

  • Resolved Luga Belosi

    (@thezomb)


    13 years, 11 months ago

    Hi there!

    After having a brief internet blackout thanks to my ISP while working locally on WordPress, my plugins box (the one that shows recent and popular plugins from http://ww.wp.xz.cn/extend/plugins/) at the dashboard looks like this:

    View post on imgur.com

    The “Other wordpress news” one, “incoming links” and basically any box that needs an internet connection also gave fOpen() and RSS errors, but those were easily fixed by hitting “configure” on each box and saving, hence querying those feeds again.

    Any idea on how to fix this? I’ve tried commenting the wp_dashboard_plugins() and wp_dashboard_plugins_output() functions in wp-admin/includes/dashboard.php, reloading the dashboard, then uncomment and reload again to no avail.

    Of course, I also tried emptying cache and access from other browsers, but still… no dice. I even got into phpMyAdmin and searched in the options table to see if there was any trace around there. Didn’t find any.

    Any idea what might be causing this? Thanks!

    Edit: also tried hiding the box from Screen options, reloading, then set to visible again, reload.

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
  • esmi

    (@esmi)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    That sounds like it might be a hosting or an ISP issue. First try contacting your hosts and see if they have changed anything on their server that might be blocking outgoing requests from your site.

    Thread Starter Luga Belosi

    (@thezomb)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Thank you esmi, but this is happening locally, on a xampp server. It worked perfectly before my ISP left me without internet for a couple hours… it’s just as if WP ‘remembers’ that it couldn’t access the rss during that time and it’s not updating it. Just tried copying /wp-admin again from the wordpress installation .zip, issue persists.

    esmi

    (@esmi)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    this is happening locally, on a xampp server

    Then it’s probably an ISP issue. It’s not a WordPress issue, per se. WP doesn’t “remember” ISP outages in any way.

    Thread Starter Luga Belosi

    (@thezomb)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Thanks esmi, this is getting weirder every minute.

    Tried to browse directly in a cache-emptied firefox browser to: http://ww.wp.xz.cn/extend/plugins/rss/browse/popular

    I get nothing.

    With Chrome I get this:

    This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
<!-- generator="bbPress/1.1" -->
<rss xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>WordPress Plugins » View: Most Popular</title>
<link>
http://ww.wp.xz.cn/extend/plugins/browse/popular/
</link>
<description>WordPress Plugins » View: Most Popular</description>
<language>en-US</language>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:27:39 +0000</pubDate>
<generator>http://bbpress.org/?v=1.1</generator>
<atom:link href="http://ww.wp.xz.cn/extend/plugins/rss/view/popular" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/>
</channel>
</rss>
<!-- cached -->

    Then, went to http://ww.wp.xz.cn/extend/plugins/rss/browse/new

    And that one loads and shows me the new plugins.

    Back to my admin dashboard, I get no popular plugins, but I do get the new ones.

    Does that <!– cached –> thing at the end of the popular ones rss snippet means it’s actually ww.wp.xz.cn preventing me from getting an updated list? Could anyone go to the popular plugins rss page and tell me if something shows up?

    So weird!

    Thread Starter Luga Belosi

    (@thezomb)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Ok, so now I can browse the rss/browse/popular ones in a browser, but getting back to wp-admin after clearing caches… still not there. Not only that, there’s only just one ‘new’ plugin whose description gets cut off and that’s it. Getting back to rss/browse/new I can see that this one plugin is not new, so again it isn’t refreshing.

    I think this is a cache issue with WP… I can browse those pages in a regular browser, so I don’t think this has anything to do with my ISP…

    edit: this is what I see now – http://imgur.com/NqbW8

    esmi

    (@esmi)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    I’m not seeing any issues with ww.wp.xz.cn, so whatever this is, it’s specific to your site/network/ISP.

    Thread Starter Luga Belosi

    (@thezomb)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Esmi, then why do I get the rss just fine in my browser when pointing at http://ww.wp.xz.cn/extend/plugins/rss/browse/popular and http://ww.wp.xz.cn/extend/plugins/rss/browse/new?

    Just curious 🙂

    esmi

    (@esmi)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    TBH I’ve no idea but it sounds like something is still royally messed up at your end. Perhaps RSS files are bypassing the block that seems to exist at your ISP?

    Thread Starter Luga Belosi

    (@thezomb)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Esmi,

    I don’t wanna sound rude, I really don’t, and I appreciate you being so quick answering my posts, so please don’t take this the wrong way: If you don’t have any idea about this, how can you say that whatever it is, it is specific to my ISP? Even if I was a newbie on these matters, I’m giving you the proof that my ISP can’t be the culprit, since I can browse directly to the RSS. Do you think that helps users?

    Now. I returned to phpMyAdmin and deleted every entry in the options table that began with ‘_transient’, since I understand that those were cached files. This thread here gave me the idea. And there it is, it was that. WP had cached the empty box when I had no internet.

    So yes, as it turns out, WP does ‘remember’ internet outages, in a way.

    I’ll mark this topic as resolved and hope it helps any users that face the same problem!

    esmi

    (@esmi)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    how can you say that whatever it is, it is specific to my ISP?

    1. You stated that you have been having severe ISP issues, yes?

    2. No one else is having this problem =- ergo. it’s specific to your site. Given (1), it would be reasonable to assume that this is still part & parcel of your ISP problems

    Thread Starter Luga Belosi

    (@thezomb)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    1. Nope, I didn’t say that, let me quote: “After having a brief internet blackout thanks to my ISP[…]”. Which is the same as unplugging my router. How ‘brief blackout’ translates to ‘severe issues’ I don’t know.

    2. No one else is having this problem? How do you know? Are you the almighty Flying Spaguetti Monster? 😀

    Then again, I could browse the rss just fine in a browser. That’s one bold reason to, if not rule out the ISP thing, just be cautious about the advice you give. I was sure this was WP’s fault, but another user would go around in circles.

    But again, thanks for trying to help, I appreciate it!

    </topic end>

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

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