Export/Import FDP Settings

Hi @pkverma99

thank you for your thread. We will try to solve this serious issue.

As I understand the post types settings page of the live site doesn’t load completely, right? If so, I would suggest doing the following:

-enable the debugging on the live site by putting the following lines of code in wp-config.php:

define(‘WP_DEBUG’, true);
define( ‘WP_DEBUG_LOG’, true );
define(‘WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY’, false);

– visit the Post Settings page on the backend of the live site
– check the errors reported in wp-content/debug.log

If that page doesn’t load completely, probably you will find some fatal errors in wp-content/debug.log. If so, please give me the list of the errors.

I think it’s important to understand why the post types settings page doesn’t fully load before going ahead with the problem-solving. After we understand it and we make it load again without problems, we can try to transfer the options from the staging site to the live site. Maybe I will add this feature in a future version.
But until the Post Types settings page doesn’t work properly, probably even if you transfer the options, you will still have problems.

Hi @pkverma99 thank you for all the detailed information.

I have a few questions.

Do you need to keep the Rank Math free version active when you activate Rank Math PRO? Or does the PRO version replace the free version which is deactivated?

I have some suspects about Rank Math PRO. Maybe it disables Rank Math free or it changes the plugins firing order to have Rank Math free that runs always before Rank Math PRO.
In both cases, this could cause some issues. Your other issue about the missing column in the post types settings page reinforces this supposition, but because I’ve never tested Rank Math PRO, it’s just a supposition.
FDP already takes into account when you activate this kind of plugins that change the firing order of other plugins or automatically disable the free version, but maybe Rank Math PRO does it in a way that I didn’t expect.

What you write in your report at point 7 makes me think Rank Math PRO changes and saves the WordPress core option where it’s stored the list of active plugins. This is something that in my opinion no plugin should do. Even FDP doesn’t change that option. FDP only filters the output of that option, but it doesn’t change it and save it again.
If you find plugins disabled on the plugins page, it means the WP core option of active plugins was changed and saved. What you say at point 13 makes me suspect also that Rank Math has disabled FDP. You see the screen of point 13 if FDP is disabled and you go to that URL, or if your user has no rights to disable plugins or if the nonce to check the intention to see that page was expired. Have you maybe tried refreshing the Post Types settings page after you saw that message shown at point 13? Was FDP enabled after seeing that message?

Another question: do you see any single files in the folder wp-content/plugins? Or are they all plugin folders?

Would it be possible to clone the live site, e.g. with All In One WP Migration? If you are able to reproduce the issue on a cloned installation we could be less worried about the results of some tests that we need for the problem-solving.

It looks like you still have version 1.8.0.

Probably it would be enough updating to 1.8.2 or disabling FDP and reactivating it again. Because this would reinitialize FDP, and the list of plugins would be updated taking into account all that was done by Rank Math PRO, but this would not allow me to completely understand what happened and there is the risk it happens again.
It would be really great if you can clone the website and reproduce the issue, then I would propose to you some tests to investigate deeper.

About the wp-cli. When you use wp-cli you see the notice “Notice: Undefined index: HTTP_HOST in …” because with wp-cli HTTP_HOST is not defined. This is just a notice and doesn’t give any problem. In any case, I will take it into account for the next version.

Thank you @pkverma99 for the link to the Rank Math Pro Support ticket. I’m not able to see it because I have no rights. If they need more technical information about FDP, feel free to send them my email [email protected]

Thank you @pkverma99

FDP filters the option “active_plugins” according to the FDP settings. If a mu-plugin saves that option after the filtering of FDP, it saves it including the filter of FDP this and could cause exactly the issue you are facing.

If a normal plugin does it, no problem, because the mu-plugin of FDP removes all its filters before the first normal plugin is called. But if this is done in the code of a mu-plugin, FDP can’t do anything to prevent this kind of problem.

The issue you describe looks caused by this kind of scenario. So I would like to be 100% sure Rank Math PRO doesn’t touch that option.

For being completely sure can you send me the zip of Rank Math PRO to [email protected]? I will check in the code of Rank Math to see what it does and also test it on my installations and try to reproduce the same issue.

Have you checked if you have other files in the folder wp-content/mu-plugins?

Do you remember if maybe you have installed other plugins since last time that was all working right?

Hi @pkverma99

As written on the other thread, the new version 1.8.3 is now public. Please let me know if it’s all ok on your live site after the update.

Perfect @pkverma99

I’m very happy all work right now.
Many thanks to you too. It was possible to improve FDP thanks to your case.

Best regards

Jose