Hi there,
Those span-sync calls will be coming from Jetpack Sync. For example, when a post is created or updated Jetpack Sync will send this action to WordPress.com so that the information we have on our servers will be aligned with what is on your site.
Looking at the sync activity for the site mentioned in the logs you’ve shared, I do see that virtually all recent sync activity is related to one action, which is update_option calls specifically for the active_plugins options.
Are you aware of any processes running on your site that would result in a high level of activity, specifically related to the list of active plugins on your site?
Other options do include completely disabling Jetpack Sync on your site, though that would mean that functionality that relies on sync would not work, for example Search, Related Posts and more. There is more information on what Sync does here:
If we can determine what activity might be resulting in those calls though, that might not be needed. Do let us know if you have any more information about possible activity on the site that could result on those update_option calls.
Thread Starter
gorky5
(@gorky5)
Hi, thanks for getting back to me.
I haven’t a clue what might be causing this. I’m not making masses of changes to my site, just a few new posts a week, nothing that would trigger something like this.
I don’t use Jetpack search, and I can find an alternative to Related Posts. Will that feature not work at all if span-sync is disabled?
In terms of Related Posts, yes without Sync that feature wouldn’t work unfortunately.
As for the issue itself though, I was able to take a closer look at why Jetpack was syncing so many update_option calls, and on looking more closely at what was being synced it appears as though the issue on your site is related to one of two plugins: Geo Mashup, and Swift SMTP (formerly Welcome Email Editor). The list of plugins on your site appears to be changing continuously – not in terms of which plugins are active on the site, but the order of those two plugins in particular. Because their order in the list changes, this is seen as a change in the active plugins list, triggering sync.
It’s not clear why those two plugins are changing order in the list, but it seems that settings within one of those plugins is likely affecting the plugin’s active status in some way.
What I’d suggest, if this would work on your site, is to try deactivating one and then the other of those two plugins, to see what impact this has on the sync calls in your logs. This should help narrow down which of the two plugins is making these changes.
From there, it might be worth looking at specific settings for each plugin to see if there is anything you can see that might result in continuously updating options, if possible.
Either way, do let us know what you find, as we’re also quite curious to know what is causing this option to be updating so often.
Thread Starter
gorky5
(@gorky5)
Hi Karen. Thanks for this – it’s really helpful. I’ll disable those plugins one by one and see if I can find the culprit. I’ll let you know what I find, but it might not be for another day or two.
Hi there, @gorky5,
Sure thing, no problem at all. Take your time for your troubleshooting, and let us know what you find out 🙂
Speak soon!
Thread Starter
gorky5
(@gorky5)
Hey Stef/Karen/all. Thanks for your help and patience.
I ended up ditching Swift SMTP (formerly Welcome Email Editor). Every time I reactivated it I got system load average warnings, which went down once it was deactivated. Now that my server resources are under control (or seem to be) I think all is good, though if I do get more server spikes I might ask for sync to be disabled after all.
I’m not sure if the central issue with Swift SMTP is related to this, but I’ve switched to an alternative SMTP plugin that seems to be less resource-hungry.
If you’re still seeing a lot of span-sync calls from Geo Mashup please let me know and I’ll reach out to the developer. It’s a useful plugin that I’d prefer to keep.
Hi @gorky5 –
I can’t say for sure if it is related to that, but it sounds like it could be.
Please let us know if you see issues with the sync again. For now, I’m going to mark this thread as resolved.
