Spurious automatic updates starting messages

aenea
(@aenea)

1 year, 10 months ago

I do not have (and never have had) automatic updates switched on in my WordPress sites. But, since I updated to WordPress 6.6, I’ve been getting the following reports daily in the debug.log file:

[23-Jul-2024 16:27:23 UTC] Automatic updates starting…
[23-Jul-2024 16:27:23 UTC] Automatic plugin updates starting…
[23-Jul-2024 16:27:23 UTC] Automatic plugin updates complete.
[23-Jul-2024 16:27:23 UTC] Automatic updates complete.

I updated both my test site and my production site on the same day and the messages only appear in the log for the production site.

Can anyone suggest why these messages have started appearing and how I can switch them off?

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

Moderator threadi
(@threadi)

1 year, 10 months ago

The simplest solution: deactivate debug mode. According to the code in the WordPress core, there is currently no other option. There is also a ticket here: https://core.trac.ww.wp.xz.cn/ticket/61391

Kris Kelvin
(@kanlukasz)

1 year, 10 months ago

The simplest solution: deactivate debug mode.

No, that’s not the solution. Many developers use .log to monitor some issues, using it with cron jobs, send logs elsewhere if something happen, etc., even in production. Of course, we lock this file for public access.

Can anyone suggest why these messages have started appearing

This is happening here: https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/8d059b9fe25d2415c164b2f53e1a458ccdc20f99/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-automatic-updater.php#L672 and I don’t see any filter to turn it off. Which is weird and inexplicable

how I can switch them off?

Currently, one of my ideas is to use the sed -i command and run it with cron. This way you can delete the pattern.

Michel Jongbloed
(@michel-jongbloed)

1 year, 8 months ago

I agree with @kanlukasz that this is weird and not what we want as developers. I now need to clear my error logs every morning to make sure I get a clean slate while working on the code.

I also don’t get the advantage of it. Starting and ending the automatic updates is normal behavior of WordPress and not something that should be logged in an error log.

Really annoying, and I don’t understand why I don’t see more developers complaining about it. If nobody complains, it probably won’t be changed.

Attila Zoltán Kedei
(@attilazkedei)

1 year, 7 months ago

Here’s my complaint, then! I’m just wondering if this is a serious issue or I can just disregard it. Fortunately, I don’t have to watch my debug log often at all.

Thread Starter aenea
(@aenea)

1 year, 7 months ago

As said by @kanlukasz and others, switching off debug mode is not an answer to this question. Debug mode is helpful for monitoring and having these unneccessary reports just clutters it up. I’ve added my ha’pence worth to the ticket referenced above by @threadi . Let’s hope someone takes notice.

titsmaker
(@titsmaker)

1 year, 6 months ago

Just one more voice – please fix this.
The dreaded “Debug must be turned off on a production website” is not an answer indeed.
Why such “improvements” are released and then we need months to add one line of code with some new filter.
And there should be a check if automatic updates are turned on before sending these messages to the log.

mindykatzen
(@mindykatzen)

1 year, 3 months ago

This was not logging until recently for us. Yes, it’s slowing down our work trying to read the debug.log.

Why that has to be logged when it shows in admin? And, why did it just start?

Thread Starter aenea
(@aenea)

11 months, 3 weeks ago

Has anyone devised a filter that will stop these messages from being written to the debug log file? Looking at the ticket mentioned by @threadi above it would appear that the WordPress developers are not regarding this as a problem and are ignoring it. The messages are now appearing in the logs for my Test website which is a real nuisance.

Moderator threadi
(@threadi)

11 months, 3 weeks ago

There is no filter to disable this, as stated in the above ticket. The simplest solution is to disable debug mode. This should not be permanently enabled in production environments anyway.

You are welcome to leave a note about this in the above-mentioned ticket. At the moment, the necessary enhancement has been postponed to a unspecified future release. This may change if you actively participate with your ideas and requests.

Thread Starter aenea
(@aenea)

11 months, 3 weeks ago

Disabling debug mode is fine for my Live site but not for the Test site where I use it to keep an eye on the effects of updates and changes. It seems an uneccessary irritation to have these reports cluttering up the file, especially since I don’t have automated plugin updates switched on.
The reply to a post I made to the ticket you mention was as follows:
‘This is unrelated to this bug report. Could you please open a new enhancement ticket for this request?’
Which wasn’t very helpful.
And I don’t know how to open an enhancement ticket.

Moderator threadi
(@threadi)

11 months, 3 weeks ago

You can create new tickets here at any time: https://core.trac.ww.wp.xz.cn/newticket – if necessary, refer to the other ticket in the text so that the context is clear. However, be as specific as possible in your new ticket. Describe the problem and, if possible, suggest a solution that you think would work. Core developers can then see if and how this would be possible.