WordPress

Running you own WordPress site – solutions, modifications, discoveries, advice.

Work with MySQL – Basic WordPress Queries

2017/11/24
By
Modified: 2017/11/05

This article was born, as I was searching for ways to handle thousands of registered WordPress users, who never do anything, never return to the site, and never even change their default password.               Table of Topics -1030- List all registered users sorted by date -1060- Group registered users by email domain name -1090- Users who ever posted articles -1120- List of registered users who ever posted comments -1150- List of users, who posted messages in your bbPress Forum -1180- Group users by year and month of registration -1210- Count users in different roles -1240-  Users who never changed their default password -1270-  Users who changed their default password -1300-…

Read more »


XML Parsing Error in Firefox; Cannot Display This Feed in IE

2017/11/19
By
Modified: 2017/11/05
Firefox-XML-Parsing-Error

This article describes, how to fix RSS Feed error messages in WordPress. In Firefox the error is “XML Parsing Error”.  In IE you see “Internet Explorer cannot display this feed”.   Symptoms When you click on RRS link in WordPress (or bbPress), you are getting this error message (see images bellow).  The message is different depending on your browser. Firefox Internet Explorer XML Parsing Error: XML or text declaration not at start of entity  Location: http://www.domainwebcenter.com/wp-content/bbpress/rss.php?topic=29 Line Number 4, Column 1:<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>   Internet Explorer cannot display this feed  This feed contains code errors. Go back to the previous page. More information Invalid xml declaration. Line: 4 Character: 3 <?xml…

Read more »

Block Remote Comments on a WordPress site

2017/11/12
By
Modified: 2017/11/05
Ban Remote Comments on a WordPress site

How to block remote comments on a WordPress site?   How indeed?   Here is a question for all of you – WordPress masters out there.   Right now I am a bit puzzled. Problem – Comments without Visits I am noticing that people are posting a spam comments in a very tricky way.  Somehow comments arrive with Site URL field populated, but I do not even have that field on the “Leave a Comment” form. It means that there is an automated way to send a comment without actually visiting the site.  Is it true?  I am searching all over the Internet right now. Looks like there is a product out there called CxxGxx. …

Read more »

How to limit a WordPress plugin to just one page?

2017/10/22
By
Modified: 2017/09/16
How to limit a WordPress plugin to just one page?

How to limit a plugin to just one page, or a few pages?  How to load a plugin only where you need it? I encountered a problem, where plugin Contact Form 7, if activated, would slow down entire WordPress site to a crawl.  Contact Form 7 is great, and I want to continue to use it.  However, this one plugin makes every page load to the count of 13 or 14.  Without it, every page loads to the count of 2 or 3.  What can I do? The solution turns out to be a very simple one.  Simply disable entire plugin unless you are loading certain pages that require this plugin.…

Read more »

How to Install WordPress 4.X on Windows 10 and IIS 7.5

2017/10/20
By
Modified: 2017/09/16
Pick-IIS-FastCGI-Option

This article is written for those who need to test/evaluate features of new WordPress release on a local machine before rolling it out to all the serves. This article describes running PHP on IIS 7.5 through FastCGI. For best results, reader is required to be able to start and stop services, understand registry manipulations, be comfortable with copy and paste inside a command prompt (Alt+Space, E, P). To achieve better portability, try to match your test machine directory structure as close as possible with your server. Other IIS Features to Pick If you are planning to test old ASP sites on the same machine, you also need to pick: - ASP…

Read more »

Moving a IIS WordPress Site to Amazon EC2 (New Prices!)

2017/10/16
By
Modified: 2017/11/12
RDP-Options

What is Wrong with Home Server? After a RAID drive hiccup on my local Windows 2008 Server, I was more inclined to consider an external hosting options.  And one of my friends already uses Amazon hosting for at least 4 years now.  So I decided to invest some time to explore this option.   What is Covered Here? – Terminology – Pricing – How to  extract your original ADMIN password – How to open a Custom Port on My Amazon Server – How to transfer files using RDP – How to launch an instance with Instance Store – What if I am Using SQL Express and need a regular D/B Backup…

Read more »

Add User Register Date Column in WordPress 3.X and 4.X

2017/10/04
By
Modified: 2017/09/16
WP-Users-with-Date-Column

This solution was last tested on WordPress 4.1.1 in March 2015.   This solution was tested on WordPress 3.1 running on IIS7 and IIS 7.5.  It will work on WordPress 3.1.1, on 3.2.1, and on 3.5.1.    This solution was just tested on WordPress 3.8.1 and works very well. This solution adds a new column to your admin user page, and makes it sortable (optional).   Here are the steps. -01- Find wp-admin\includes\class-wp-users-list-table.php and make a backup copy of the file. Call it class-wp-users-list-tableORIG.php.   -02- Open wp-admin\includes\class-wp-users-list-table.php in your favorite editor.   -03- Find line function get_columns() {   -04- Add a new line of code ‘user_registered’ => __(‘Date’), after…

Read more »

MH Magazine vs. Hueman – what I did not find in manuals

2017/09/25
By
Modified: 2017/09/28
MH Magazine Widget Titles 8 layouts

Server crash in September 2017 prompted a fury of activity, and WordPress upgrade was on the top of the list.  My site got frozen in time because new upgraded versions on free Magazine Basic lost so much functionality, that I preferred to keep old version rather than loose features. Top contenders as new theme candidates were MH Magazine and, a few days later, Hueman by Press Customizr.  I spend about 10-12 very intense hours (about a week in calendar days) in exploring features and interface of each of these two themes and Hueman began to win the competition.  The main reason was that Press Customizr included so much more in a free…

Read more »

WordPress: Image Editor is not loading in IE under tight security

2017/08/09
By
Modified: 2017/06/25
WordPress - Image Editor is not Loading

Let’s say you have a very thigh zone security setup in IE.   All Internet sites are set to High security level, and  Trusted sites are set a Medium-High. In that case you might experience a painful WordPress problem – Image Editor is not loading in IE.  It is getting stuck on a dark loading image. Symptoms: when you click on Add an Image or Edit Image buttons, all you see is your screen is darkening and running image in the middle imitating loading is staying on, forever. To solve this problem without killing your security settings add site about:blank to you trusted site list and here we go – problem is solved!

Read more »

ERROR: Unreadable CAPTCHA cookie – RESOLVED!

2017/08/07
By
Modified: 2017/06/25
WordPress -  Unreadable CAPTCHA cookie

RESOLVED!  One of the test WordPress instances had an impossible, unpleasant and not covered on Google error message.  When user is trying to register, the CAPTCHA code is displayed properly and validation is correct, but when the button Register is press, the page would display this: ERROR: Unreadable CAPTCHA cookie I have a plugin “SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam” installed.  The error message is from this plugin. I’ve tried changing browsers, clear cache and cookies. Nothing worked.  No luck on Internet search either.  What to do? Finally I changed one of the settings on the plugin itself.  I check an option for: Use CAPTCHA without PHP session And it worked!  The error message…

Read more »

Make Contact Form 7 work again – change your FROM field

2017/07/20
By
Modified: 2017/06/25

I noticed that my Contact Form 7 started to fail tests without a slightest provocation. This article describes simple steps how to make it work reliable again.   Purpose Reliably receive messages generated by Contact Form 7 from any address.   Problem Many SMTP providers further restricted message relay policies.  They now only allow messages FROM validate addresses.    Solution  Modify your WP email setup -1- Open “Advanced Email Options” -2- Set “From Email” field the same as email account you authenticating  your SMTP login   Test your WP email setup Send several messages using “Send Test” on the bottom of “Advanced Email Options” page, and make sure you are getting…

Read more »