Probable incompatibility with wp 4.9+

#1

Hello!

I have updated wp last week from 4.8.4 to 4.9.4 and a couple of days ago a user had problems registering an account.

he never received a confirmation email (not even in the spam), but at first I thought was some firewall on his side.
so I’ve found his payment on paypal (that went through correctly), and I went to generate a registration link for him to create an account.

the problem is, as soon as I create the link, it already says it’s expired when you click it.
anybody having the same issue?
I have updated wp and a couple other plugins the other day, and everything worked fine till the week before, as we had other new subscribers.

I haven’t got the time to test creating other accounts, but as I’ve noticed that the plugin hasn’t been updated in more than 7 months and there are quite a bit of 1 star reviews recently saying that the plugin doesn’t work, I am now wondering if s2members is actually dead or if someone would look into these bugs and ensure that the plugin is compatible with the newer versions of wp?

#2

Probable incompatibility with wp 4.9+

I’ll never understand why people insist on making such claims in forum threads when they have absolutely nothing to support them except “something doesn’t work.” You’re just guessing, so there’s nothing “probable” about it.

Actually, there’s only one claiming that it doesn’t work with 4.9.x (specifically 4.9.2). If you actually want help, don’t engage in misrepresentations.

In any event, that person claims to be using Stripe. Yet I’m using s2Member with Stripe and have had no problems whatsoever. So I’m very skeptical of that review.

After years on s2Member forums, experience has taught me that if someone, like you, thinks they have a problem with s2Member and PayPal, the most likely explanation is at PayPal’s end. They are forever making unannounced changes to their API. It’s one of several reasons why I use Stripe and would never use PayPal.

#3

Hello Tim,
I am sorry if I sounded somehow accusatory or denigrating. It wasn’t my intent and honestly I don’t feel that I have actually said anything that could make it look in that way. So please, do calm down and let’s have a mature conversation if you want to provide help, or just avoid to reply.

I am a plugin developer myself, and trust me I would never come in a support forum to argue and accuse on the basis of nothing. I just noticed that nobody else reported this issue and wanted to report the bug. And as looking around I became concerned about the latency of the devs, I reached out to see if someone would actually be there to listen and debug this issue or if I’d better consider to switch to another plugin asap.

And by the way, as your inflammatory reply-style sounded familiar, I double checked the wp forum and you jumped at the throat of another guy on a review which was just saying that he had problems with the plugin (maybe his fault, but doesn’t change the point) and nobody helped him because the forum and plugin are abandoned. And yes, there might be only one saying that it didn’t work with wp 4.9.2 but there are so many other problems reported that didn’t get a single answer from the devs, and the guy has all the rights to give 1 star review if he had a problem and nobody even replied to him.
I honestly don’t know what pushes you to react in this way, especially if you aren’t involved with the devs, but I would suggest to reconsider your reactions and try to breathe before replying. In particular considering that you are probably one of the few persons replying to support requests in the last months, and despite I too used to love this plugin, I am afraid it looks like it went down the drain, and maybe your efforts to save its reputations are not justified anymore and you’re just lucky that you didn’t stumble in a bug yet. (though 7 months without an update and active install dropped to 30k should ring an alarm to you too)

In any case, the only thing I said was reporting my problem and my suggestions based on what I know about it. If I already knew for sure what is the cause, I wouldn’t be here asking, would I? So I definitely wasn’t meant to come here and make accusations about a problem for which I don’t know the cause. I actually came here to ask if someone knew the cause or had the same problem.

the only thing I know is that it was working before updating wp and now it doesn’t.
and the problem is not related with paypal (at least it doesn’t seem to, or not entirely) because it happens all within wp/s2members. I put the payment ID to generate the registration link from wp backend, it creates the link but when you click it says it’s already expired.

and the payments are correctly created in paypal, but it seems that then wp/s2members doesn’t send the emails. (paypal confirmation arrived correctly). And even in the case that it was because of a change in paypal API, it’s still on the shoulders of the developers to quickly look into it and fix it, therefore it’s still necessary for people to come here and report these problems. I always help people who says that have problems with my plugin, even if it’s ultimately their fault. That’s part of providing support.

after that said, if you have any suggestion about these issues I will appreciate your help, but I am mostly here to understand if any of the developers would ever look into this issue and to know if they are planning to release an update anytime soon, because otherwise even if this problem is caused by something else, I am afraid I’d better start the work to switch to another plugin asap (and definitely not happy to do so).

I will be pleased to hear a positive reply from a dev here, and it’d be also good for anyone else coming in the future and having the same scary feeling that the plugin is abandoned. No accusations and nothing personal. I just think it’s a legitimate thought given the situation. And I am actually a bit surprised that I couldn’t find any article talking about the fact that such a famous plugin seems to be abandoned…

#4

I’m very calm, thanks. I just wish people would stick to the facts. Avoid the inflammatory rhetoric and you won’t get a response you don’t like.

Precisely. So why use a title that suggests you know the answer?

Report a problem, if you have one, and people will try to help. If you sound like someone from a political forum, you’ll get no help at all. So I’m telling you for your own good.

If you simply want to check what the developers are currently doing, then look at s2Member’s Github account: https://github.com/websharks/s2member

#5

inflammatory??
where exactly have I sounded inflammatory or political?

I just said “probable incompatibility” in the title, meaning that I don’t know but it looks like it’s because of that, considering that it did work till before the update.
I really don’t understand how using “probable” in the title might sound accusatory or suggest that I know the answer. in particular if then I just report the bug and clearly say that I don’t know for sure because I haven’t got the time to run proper testing, and I ask if someone else had the same issue (in order to better narrow the possible causes).

and by the way, I did look at the github bug report (which doesn’t look very comforting, considering that the last actions from a dev are about a month ago)., but now that you’ve mentioned it, I went to look again at the code base and guess what? there isn’t any commit more recent that 7 months ago. not even in branches. Hence the answer to the question looking at github would be “they are currently doing nothing for the plugin, and they’ve done nothing for months already”.

But instead of assuming that I already know it’s abandoned, I came here to reach out and see if a dev would actually reply and eventually reassure me about their plans. At this point figuring out my issue is a secondary problem. If the plugin is not properly maintained I would have to switch, and I need to know it asap.

#6

Then I suggest you consult a dictionary, because that’s not what probable means.

#7

look Tim, could you just drop it please?
Even though I am not english, I do know the meaning of “probable”. do you?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/probable#Etymology

I just reported my problem and given that I am not a clueless user I provided my suggestions about the possible cause, which honestly does look pretty probable too, even though it’s not certain, but I never said that it was.

if anyone has any suggestion I would be glad to get some help, or at least to know for sure if the plugin will be fully maintained or not.

in any case, your claims and arguing are completely off topic, hence please stop it and let’s see what the devs have to say. I’d be very happy to know that I got the wrong impression and they are well and active.

#8

Yes, I do. I also know the difference between etymology and meaning. Apparently, you don’t.

So what are you here for, Andrea?

While responding to you, I have been talking to another user whose first language is also not English. He stated his problem, which made it possible to diagnose and then fix.

You didn’t state the problem. You decided to start with a conclusion. And, though I’ve suggested where you should be looking, you still don’t want to know. So you don’t seem to want help at all.

If you want to talk to a dev, this is not the place. This is a forum where users can talk to one another. If you want to talk to a dev, either send them a PM or open an issue on Github (which, by the way, will lead you to a template which expects you to be just as factual as I do). It’s your choice.

#9

I am sorry Tim, I wouldn’t go so much on the personal side if you could stop making a fool of yourself.
contrary to what you say, you don’t seem to know the meaning of “probable”, because it just mean “likely but not certain”, or “something with a higher percent of possibility than the average”.


https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/probable

And you don’t seem to know the meaning of “etymology” either, as it is basically the same of “meaning” but with additional info about the origin and derivation of the word and its meanings through history.

maybe you struggle because they are both coming from the latin, but in any case I would suggest you to stop digging on this path.

then regarding my issues, I really don’t understand what’s your problem but I would be glad if you take a minute to go back and read again my first post.

Excluding the title, where I do make a suggestion for a possible (and likely) cause, the rest of my post is literally just the description of what happened, and information about the situation around it (including the fact that I have updated wp and that it worked before the update).
then I ask if someone else had the problem or have any suggestions, and I also ask if the plugin is abandoned as it looks.

then you claim you provided help suggesting where to look, but you just said that usually it’s a problem with paypal. And I replied that, as I said in the first post, the payment plan has been correctly created and the paypal confirmation came through correctly, and the problem is instead within wp, and it’s definitely a s2member bug because when generating the account registration links from the admin panel, they simply don’t work, and that hasn’t anything to do with paypal.

and even if it was because of some changes on paypal api, that still isn’t something I would have to fix on my side, nor paypal’s, because it’s s2member devs job to properly maintain the plugin or to make a formal statement about the situation, so that people can decide what to do.

And I haven’t created a bug report in github yet because I haven’t investigated the problem enough, but also because I thought it might be not worth the effort to investigate and debug it there, considering that they don’t seem to be actively following github as well.

I hoped to come here and find some help from other users or to gather information about the current situation with the plugin maintenance. I would wait a few days to see if someone comes with actual help or news, but if the only active person here is you, then I guess I already have an answer to my doubts, and my fear that the plugin is dead are actually confirmed.

have a good day.

#10

Ah but only a narcissist believes that because he thought of one possible cause of a bug, then that means that it is “something with a higher percent of possibility than the average”.

There are numerous factors at play in a WP website. The mere fact you thought of one makes it one possibility in a very large number.

But, hey ho, you’re just one of those people who is more interested in being right than being helped. Which means you’ll end up being neither. Have fun!

#11

as I said previously, I am a developer. Precisely I work as a wordpress developer in a company in UK, even though I do work on other projects and platforms too. I literally code plugins and themes and debug wp issues for a living (though this issue is not related to my company, we use mostly custom solutions for our clients). :slight_smile:
As I mentioned I also have a plugin in the wp repo (a bit old but works, I keep it updated and tested, and I am actually working on a refactoring in the spare time).

But although I do know “the numerous factors at play in a WP website”, I don’t claim to be right.
that’s why I clearly said it was a probable possibility, read “something that to me looks likely possible, considering the facts at hand”. But I have also presented those facts exactly to see if someone else would guess differently.

then you attacked me personally, assuming and clearly expressing that I have no clue what I am talking about, providing no help to my issues and making random general statements (“suggestions”, as you name them) about the fact that it’s more likely not s2members fault and rather is a paypal problem, even though I have never said I have a problem with payments and paypal, but rather with the account creation (registration link, and eventually emails) on the wp side.

and you would excuse me but no, at this point I am definitely not looking to be helped by you and I rather prefer just to clarify why I am right in this (personal) argument with you, and then see if someone else will help me with the actual problem and possibly also answer to my question, which is the most important at now: “is the plugin maintained and going to be updated anytime soon, or is it abandoned?”

and I am afraid that if they allow to have you here, treating people in this way on their official support forum (and it’s not even the first time that you go on a rampage making personal attacks without any good reason), then it looks like they really don’t care about the plugin anymore.