Map Software Archives | Store Locator Plus®

Location Import Fixed (WordPress plugins only)

Posted by lcleveland in Map Software, Release Notes, Store Locator, Store Locator Plus, WPSLP

One of our users reported an issue where their location import stopped working after updating the Power add on to a new release. This was never an issue for our SaaS users given the strict nature of the directory configuration, WordPress version, and PHP version running on that platform.

If a user downloads a new version of the Power add on (a zip file) and already has a prior version of the slp-power.zip file in the download directory on their laptop, the browser may create a new file named slp-power-2.zip without direct notification or confirmation it has done so.

If the user uploads this file to the WordPress installation it will create a NEW installation of the Power plugin at ./wp-content/plugins/slp-power-2/. This may or may not reside alongside a version of the older installation at ./wp-content/plugins/slp-power/ which is the standard installation path.

Even if a user deactivates and deletes the existing Power add on , which is best practice, before uploading the new slp-power-2.zip , the new path for the plugin will not match the prior path.

This causes the JavaScript for location imports included in the Power add on to not be loaded.

While some users may still encounter this issue depending on how their servers are configured (WordPress version, PHP version, and other variables can impact how the plugins behave).

There is a patch out in the latest version of the Store Locator Plus® WordPress plugin v2511.05.01 and Power add on v2511.05.01 that make this process less fragile. That will alleviate issues on some server configurations, but best practices should still be followed when updating plugins.

Premier users can login to their account at the SLP WordPress plugin store, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the downloads link to get the latest versions of all SLP plugins.

Tired of dealing with plugin version issues, server issues, and Google API billings? Try the Store Locator Plus SaaS edition. It works with WordPress, no plugins required, as well as most other online presence services including Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, and others.

WordPress Environment Info Fixed

Posted by lcleveland in General, Google Maps, Map Software, Release Notes, Store Locator, Store Locator Plus, Web Presence, WordPress

The info page for our Store Locator Plus® WordPress plugin users has been patched. Some users were experiencing a situation where the information page would not render, showing only a white space. This was due to conflicting JavaScript on some installations. The issue has been resolved and is available in the latest update to Store Locator Plus® for our WordPress plugin community.

This page includes the latest news, links to the documentation articles that help the WordPress plugin users get started, as well as an environment panel. The environment panel is important for users requesting support as it provides the WordPress environment info we need to assist in a timely fashion.

This issue does not impact users of the SaaS platform.

Post image by Lance Cleveland.

Editing Categories and Location Import/Export

Posted by lcleveland in Google Maps, Map Software, MySLP SaaS, Release Notes, Store Locator, Store Locator Plus, WPSLP

During the month of June we have been working on several patches for both Store Locator Plus® SaaS platform and WordPress plugin users. We have also performed multiple tweaks to improve performance including leveraging some PHP 8 specific performance tweaks.

SaaS User Editing Categories

All SaaS users received an updated earlier this week patching the category edit functionality. Buried deep in the new settings history tracker was an issue that prevented categories from being edited and saved after they were created.

Since our SaaS platform still runs most of the core features through the old-school WordPress core code it inherits a lot of garbage including the very outdated category editor (we are hoping to replace that someday with a modern React style editor). Part of the garbage that is inherited with that 15-year-old janky interface is the fact that the only way to add extended attributes to categories, like our custom map markers and icons, is to store the extra metadata in the WordPress options table. It just so happens that is the MAIN settings storage area.

We missed that when adding our settings history feature to the SaaS plugin. Thus, any time a user saved their category updates for their locations the WordPress engine would fire the “hey, we just saved some settings” trigger. Our code was expecting actual settings not category data and didn’t handle it well.

That has been patched and is already deployed for all SaaS users.

Location Import/Export

Users that have installed the Power add for WordPress may have issues importing and exporting locations. After a week of tracking down this issue, which only happens on SOME WordPress sites, we have found that the WordPress user settings for administrators can be corrupted. This causes the admin interface to not load properly. That causes the JavaScript for the Power add on (and likely lots of other plugins, not just ours) to not be loaded.

This is NOT corruption caused by our plugin code. We are not sure what triggers it, but in some case a WordPress install will start thinking it is a “multisite” install and attaches either the network_admin or user_admin attribute to a logged in user session. When that happens the “do this when an administrator is on the Store Locator Plus® admin pages” does not fire.

What did we do to fix this? In our test installations where we could reproduce the problem we went to our administrator user profile , changed the website URL (you can change ANY data — might be a good time to update your passwords) and saved. After we re-saved our user profile with a new website URL or password everything came back as expected.

How did the user admin meta get out-of-whack? We may never know.

Bottom line, if you location imports or exports are broken try re-saving your user profile in WordPress.

This issue does NOT impact SaaS users.

Post image by Lance Cleveland