[Support request] Imported Site, But Elements Location Not Displayed

[Darryl]

I truly hope the defining silence in the moment, doesn’t indicate that I am screwed and must re-do hours worth of work?
🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

[Fernando]

Hi Darryl,

Sorry for the delay in response. We try to respond to customer replies within 12-24 hours on weekdays.

To clarify, did this occur to all imported elements?

Moreover, for the pages the Elements were supposed to show on, did you also import these or did you recreate them?

Can you try re-importing “Donor Network” element for instance and see how it goes?

Let us know.

[Darryl]

To clarify, did this occur to all imported elements?

Yes, I exported the site db from a mutlisite installation and I exported the site using the GP Premium export tool. (I did this b/c I know GP Premium export tool helps prevent missing css problems when migrating)

Moreover, for the pages the Elements were supposed to show on, did you also import these or did you recreate them?
Every page you see is an import, I have not created any pages on the site since migration.

Can you try re-importing “Donor Network” element for instance and see how it goes?
Give me a minute… as luck would have it my backup directory cleaning script failed and I still have a copy of the export .json and .sql files… once let me make a snapshot and test them out…

[Fernando]

I see. That’s odd. Let us know how it goes.

Also, will you be able to try using a migration plugin instead of manually exporting and importing to test?

Example: https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-migration/

[Darryl]

Immediately following import of the .json of site settings… “Donor Network” displays 3 “blank locations”

View post on imgur.com

If I save the “Donor Network” element while the 3 locations are blank.. the “Donor Network” sidebar is removed from the 3 places that it should appear.

Also, will you be able to try using a migration plugin instead of manually exporting and importing to test?

No. The only remnants of the previous site are the .sql and .json exports of the site. The snapshot backup has long since been deleted because the site deceivingly appeared to be functioning properly…

[Darryl]

Any more suggestions… really don’t want to re-do this work… this is now the bottleneck on my progress…

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

[Darryl]

FYI… via wp-cli and PMA … I double-checked the db for an old “/paths/to/wordpress/” or “old_usernames” … nothing. The site is structured correctly… It just seems that the gp-premium settings import/export is somehow broken. :-/ 😭😭😭😭😭

[Tom]

Hey Darryl,

I took a look at this and I think the main issue is the overall performance of the site.

It’s taking forever to load, and those Display Rules load in the background.

You can see here how long I had to wait for them to finally show up: https://www.screencast.com/t/mOx3yI8cPu7

You can test this by opening the “Network Tab” in the editor and refreshing the page. Eventually, they should load.

Ideally, you need to find the performance bottleneck on the site, or upgrade the hosting (assuming that’s the issue).

Let me know if you can reproduce the video.

[Darryl]

I haven’t optimize the caching for the staging site, so I expect it to react sluggishly…

The problem that I am describing ceases to exist if I completely re-build whatever page using the same exact elements. Thereby negating sluggish performance concerns.

[Darryl]

If you like… I can send you the .json export file so that you inspect it and determine if the settings were exported correctly. Where should I send it?

[David]

I haven’t optimize the caching for the staging site, so I expect it to react sluggishly…

This has no bearing on the main issue that Tom raises. The problem is in the backend, the server is taking a huge amount of time to complete the necessary requests to load those display rules.

This could be an issue with the server, or an issue with the database.

Can you ask your host to run some checks on the server ?

[Darryl]

Perhaps we have some signal crossed here… but I fail to see how a general diagnosis of “overall performance of the site” can cause the very specific problematic behavior that I have described… when, again… the problematic behavior completely vanishes if I re-build the page layout.

The server is in Asia, its not using a CDN, nor caching, no one would expect it to perform super fast for folks in the US. Suggesting that I chase down “overall performance”, no offence intended seems like a “wild goose chase”.

Also, I find it odd, as most people probably would… that if I re-create the same exact page layout using the same exact elements the problem completely goes away. That point can’t simply be disregarded, seems pretty relevant.

Am I to believe that the server, quite selectively, only loads my previously created / imported settings so slowly that they are never shown, but at the same time loads newly created settings fast enough to be shown? Doesn’t seem likely.

Occam’s Razor, maybe the previously created settings just weren’t imported correctly.

If you guys don’t know what’s wrong, I’d prefer a simple “we don’t know, sorry about the inconvenience”… but I really have no intention of using my time to chase down the webhosting company over what most people would probably, logically conclude is a bug in a single plugin.

Perhaps the .json export is somehow corrupt… seems logical to verify its integrity given its central role in the situation, but I guess that is unimportant. Any database tables that should be checked?

Historically, you guys been very helpful to resolve issues quickly / efficiently, but not this time. I will chock this up to bad luck and hope for better solutions in the future.

[Tom]

Hi Darryl,

I don’t believe this is a bug in the plugin or we would be able to reproduce it on our own servers and would have reports of it from other users.

Performance and server response time can be selective and weird. In this case, I watched the issue happen and waited (way too long, showing something wrong with the server) for the items to show up.

As I built the feature, I understand what’s happening behind the scenes. By default, those select items are empty (as you’re seeing). Your website then makes a single request to grab the saved values. Most of the time, this happens so fast (with a healthy server) that you don’t even notice this happens. It looks like it just loads at the same time as everything else. However, with a sluggish server, this process becomes noticeable.

I don’t know why it’s not happening on newly created pages, but I observed the issue happening and can tell you that server performance is the reason (at least for the issue I saw).

Are you able to reproduce what I showed in my video, or do they never show up at all, even if you wait? If they never show up, it could be a different issue than what I saw when I tested, and I’ll take another look.

If it was me, the first thing I would do is spin up the same site on another test server. This will at least tell you whether this is indeed server-related or something deeper within the plugin.

Historically, you guys been very helpful to resolve issues quickly / efficiently, but not this time. I will chock this up to bad luck and hope for better solutions in the future.

I can assure you that we’re trying, but not all issues are easy to resolve. When we can’t reproduce the issue on our end, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify the exact cause and can take longer than other issues. Our intention is to solve all issues reported to us as fast as possible, but it doesn’t always work like that.

So, if this was my site, I would:

1. Deactivate my other plugins to see if one of them is causing the server issues.
2. If that doesn’t work, I would move the site to a different test server to see if the issue keeps happening.
3. If the issue persists on a different server (without the performance issues), then we’re looking at something deeper and we can debug further. This would likely involve sFTP access so we can console.log() the code to find the specific issue.

[Darryl]

If they never show up, it could be a different issue than what I saw when I tested, and I’ll take another look.

The crux of the matter is that 2 pages into this ticket, your side still doesn’t seem to understand the problem that is being reported. We seem to be knee deep in a round of “broken telephone“. Speak with Fernando directly because he seemed to initially grasp what the actual problem is…

In the meanwhile I will re-establish your access to the staging server and describe the same problem again.

**

First, visit https://staging.webinar.thesolutiontopoverty.org/index.php/bill-gates/

Notice that there is a right-hand sidebar with a cartoon profile of bill gates.

Now, open the element entitled “Profile – Bill” you will see 1 blank space in which the current location of the element should appear (fyi, should be multiple defined locations as the elements appears on multiple pages). The locationsnever appear appear in the back-end. You can wait a few minutes. You can wait an hour, several hours, or a full day, they will never appear. That is one of the problems. Server is sluggish, not broken.

Additionally, after you have patiently waited for whatever chosen time period, if you click “update” (save) the Bill – Profile, then re-visit https://staging.webinar.thesolutiontopoverty.org/index.php/bill-gates/ you will that the Bill-Profie has now vanished from its original position and that the element now has to be re-added to the page (the element has also been removed from all of its other location page as well). This is the second problem. (Note: if you simply close the “Profile – Bill” element tab in the browser without saving it… the element remain dependably exactly where it should on all its related pages. This situation to all of my current imported elements.

In a nutshell, it seems that,only part of the location of information for existing elements gets to be imported.

Then, an imported element is saved, it writes new location information (even blank / null) information for imported elements, if no new location has been defined prior to saving, thereby removing the element from its current location.

The core problem seems to be that location information for existing elements was not 100% imported.

[David]

Can you confirm the login details as those provided above are not recognised.
If you can add them in the Private Information field below.

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