We have multisite setup on production with custom theme and few plugins active.
We found that the the theme settings pages were broken and UI of the site was distorted. After debugging more we got to know that the additional css section for each sub-site was removed i.e. blank additional css section under themes->appearances->customize->additional css
On further investigation IT team has below observation –
It’s likely that this setting was inadvertently overwritten during the manual install/activation of the Simple History plugin.
So, I am trying to understand are there any such chances where history plugin (version 5.2.0 and above) affecting/deleting/overriding database or entries done by other theme or plugins?
@sonali1215 I have not heard of the plugin modifying any core setting before (no other reports about this) and also the plugin only adds data to it’s own database tables and it does not write anything to any other tables. So I find it unlikely that Simple History is behind any CSS being removed.
But yes, rare bugs can happen, so I have tried to debug this and reproduce it, but to no avail. I have a test multisite network and I have tried adding custom CSS and disabling and activating Simple History, but the custom additional CSS is still there. In my testing it’s the CSS with green border that I’ve added, and that is still there no matter if I activate och deactivate Simple History.
So I think that Simple History is not the cause of this.
Thanks, it helped. Yes I know that it does not have any such query written and very less chances that it might affect the database options table but as per below information, IT team said that the plugin was installed and activated with some misconfigurations and site was messed up.
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View simple history page ->
WordPress Jul 7, 2025 10:35 am (11 days ago)
Welcome to Simple History! This is the event history feed. It will contain events that this plugin has logged.
Simple History has been successfully installed on your WordPress site and is active and ready to log important changes on your website…….(continued)
Other Jul 7, 2025 10:35 am (11 days ago)
Installed plugin “Simple History”
Other Jul 7, 2025 10:35 am (11 days ago)
Activated plugin “Simple History”
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“Other User”, is it non-registered user or installed or activated by server side? Just trying to understand if some one tried to add any malicious code through plugin.
This reply was modified 10 months, 3 weeks ago by Sonali Agrawal.
“Other” means that Simple History could not determine how the plugin was installed. It can happen if the plugin is installed in an uncommon way. If it’s installed via WP admin or using WP-CLI that would be shown, but if it’s installed directly on the server some other way (using an internal tool or a custom tool supplied by a web host) the plugin can not determine the user responsible for the action.
If you or another user did install the plugin and you wanted the plugin installed and you downloaded the plugin from ww.wp.xz.cn I would not be worried.
And that CSS errors, I’m 99% sure it was not the fault of Simple History. Strange bugs can happen, but as I said I’ve never heard that the plugin have caused this behaviour. Perhaps another plugin was installed or got an update a the same time?
