MySLP Archives | Store Locator Plus®

Resolved – Settings Being Reset After Updates

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

Over the past 6 months or so we’ve been working with customers to resolve an issue where updating Store Locator Plus® would reset some (not all) settings. This was especially prevalent with our WordPress plugin users. With the latest 2511.08.XX release we believe we’ve finally put this issue to rest.

For some users, when they would update the base Store Locator Plus® WordPress plugin they would lose some settings. One of the settings we noticed on one of our test boxes was the Google Maps API key being reset. The full list of possible settings that could be impacted are shown here:

broadcast_timestamp => 0
default_country => us
extended_data_tested => 0
map_language => en
next_field_id => 1
next_field_ported => 
premium_user_id => 
premium_subscription_id => 
radius_behavior => always_use
slplus_plugindir => /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/store-locator-plus/
slplus_basename => store-locator-plus/store-locator-plus.php
themes_last_updated => 0
active_style_css => div#map img {...more CSS...
admin_notice_dismissed => 0
invalid_query_message => We did not receive a valid JSONP response.
radii => 10,25,50,100,(200),500
searchlayout => ...HTML...
hide_address_entry => 0
hide_radius_selector => 0
label_radius => Within
label_search => Address / Zip
map_height => 480
map_height_units => px
map_width => 100
map_width_units => %
remove_credits => 0
maplayout => ...HTML...
initial_results_returned => 25
max_results_returned => 25
message_bad_address => Could not locate this address. Please try a different location.
message_no_results => No locations found.
instructions => Enter an address or zip code and click the find locations button.
label_hours => Hours
label_image => Image
theme => a_gallery_style
style_id => 
layout => ...HTML...
log_schedule_messages => 0
google_geocode_key => AI...HY
google_server_key => AI...HY
url_control_description =>

Store Locator Plus® Has Been Re-listed

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

It has been a year since Store Locator Plus® has been listed in the official WordPress plugin directory. The previous 12 months have been quite the journey to get the plugin re-listed — but we finally made it! Kudos to the development team for taking on the thousands of lines of code that make the Store Locator Plus® applications “go” and helping us get there. Thanks to the customer support team for helping keep things going while the dev team was getting up to speed and addressing all the concerns noted by the folks on the WordPress Plugin Team. It took longer than expected, but we finally have our plugin and the associated one-click updates for our install base back online.

Store Locator Plus® 5.13.8 for WordPress

The new release, Store Locator Plus® 5.13.8 is available for immediate download from your WordPress SLP account. Now that we have been re-listed you can also get our plugin directly from the WordPress plugin directory.

This update includes PHP 8 compatibility (use with caution, PHP 8 is still not officially supported by WordPress) as well as numerous internal security updates. It also patches some minor issues reported in the past year.

There are a LOT of code changes and millions of combinations of settings in Store Locator Plus®. We’ve tested compatibility with the premium add ons from Power, Experience, and Premier but your configuration may uncover an issue we did not discover. If you run into issues with the latests update please let us know and we’ll address the problem as quickly as we can.

We’re Back

Our business leader and original architect of Store Locator Plus® is back at it full time. Our tech leader has been very busy during the past two years, assisting Store Locator Plus® on a limited basis while working to get another tech startup off-the-ground. That company is now moving to the next phase and our leader is back and is 100% focused on bring the next generation of Store Locator Plus products and services to market.

Plans are in the works to improve the user experience, improve stability and performance, and branch out to natively support more web presence platforms and web developer tool kits. New features and services are coming to the SaaS platform, with a renewed focus on extending the reach of our software-as-a-service offering. Pricing changes are being discussed to ease the burden on small businesses.

There is a lot more coming. Be sure to subscribe to our news feed to keep up as we work toward the next generation of products and services.

Focusing On You

One of the first changes being employed is focusing on how we can help YOU, our established customer base. We have a lot of catching up to do and are committed to getting Store Locator Plus® back to the top of the locator software and services list. To get there we are going to need your help.

The best way to help? Communicating your needs. What can we do better? What features are missing or can be improved? Or drop us a note to tell us what we’re doing right.

We promise we’ll listen and do our best to improve our services and products.

Go back

Your message has been sent

Store Locator Server Upgrade

Posted by lcleveland in MySLP SaaS, Store Locator Plus, WPSLP

All of the Store Locator Plus® web properties are now living on an updated server cluster. The new configuration, a load-balanced cluster, will provide zero-downtime maintenance window and faster performance under peak load; These upgrades will be most noticeable for our SaaS users.

What Changed?

Our prior server configuration used a failover configuration. In that type of configuration a web server handles 100% of the load and if it fails a second duplicate server that is in standby takes over. This provides limited downtime with reduced costs; However, it also means there are routine service outages when the underlying software (Operating System, web services, web apps) are updated.

The current configuration, put into place over the weekend with zero downtime, uses a load balanced configuration. In this configuration two-or-more servers mirror each other and are all online and answering web requests at the same time. Requests are split between the servers with a goal of maintaining an average load of just under 50%. This ensures that if one server fails the service stays up-and-running while a replacement server is automatically brought online to assist in web services.

The load balanced cluster also provides an added benefit of horizontal scalability. Failover style server could only be pushed up to a bigger server with more CPUs and RAM and faster network interfaces; a process that meant building ever-bigger servers with higher costs and longer maintenance window downtime. The load balanced cluster configuration monitors server loads across the cluster and adds a new server automatically at set performance limits. This ensures that there is a less-than-5-minute response time to adding capacity whenever there is a spike in usage.