With Yoast Google Analytics activated, the Watching and Subscribed buttons don’t work. Also, the “Go To Button” image disappears.

With Clicky Analytics activated, the profile doesn’t work consistently. It’s odd, because it does work intermittently.

Apologies. I thought this was Yeast WordPress SEO which is the one I was referring to.

Now – if this Yoast and/or Clicky are effecting behaviour on the front, public facing side of your website – but are actually purely admin side based tools then either something is wrong with the way they are written or some sort of public facing side is the cause. So – do either HAVE a public facing component at all? Like maybe a widget? Tag or something? Something that can be independently turned off.

And if buttons are not working you will need to use the browser console to see what is happening. I will try and stop by later and see if I can see anything when clicking the subscribe button.

Thanks Swordfish,

Yes, sorta. The Clicky plugin has a frontend feature that shows top searches. I can turn it off. Doing so doesn’t seem to help though. I have these plugins turned back on right now, in case it helps to see what I’m referring to. 

One of my Google Analytics plugins has a frontend feature, but it’s not the one that was causing issues.

OK – subscription and watch buttons…/ I see neither with this account you set up for us. So looks like I am not allowed to subscribe to topics. Anything else I CAN try?

I’m sorry Swordfish,

Still figuring out this stuff. I had no idea you couldn’t do that. Member abilities have just been edited. I went ahead and made you admin though, in case it helps.

Thanks,

Joe

OK – now I get a Subscribe button and when I click it I get subscribed to the topic successfully…

Communication can be funny.

I hadn’t even checked that one. I’m talking about the “Watching” and “Subscribed” buttons to review what’s already been watched and subscribed to.   http://clip2net.com/s/6vGmWg 

And also the “Go To Button” image. http://clip2net.com/s/6vGpnf 

Then, of course, the profile not working. http://clip2net.com/s/6vGqKW  but that’s related to Clicky. The other two issues are associated with one of the Google Analytics plugins. 

OK – I see this.

I am sorry to say that you really are using some combination of WP theme and/or plugins that are really causing problems. I have encountered this effect once or twice before but really can not remember what might be the cause. I think the only option is to deactivate all of your plugins to see if that resolves all these issues and then, if it does, reactivate them one at a time to see when things break.

The problem with the buttons is caused by something you have active that is applying a filter to the displayed content and changing some double quotes to single quotes. Why on earth anything would want to do this I have no idea but it does create a problem for any html event code and is, I would think, totally unnecessary and hostile. You are looking for something that is parsing the displayed ‘page’ content and manipulating it in some way.

Thanks,

So, my question would be – Is this something caused by a plugin in particular, that’s causing each of these other plugins to affect the site? Or is it each of these plugins being an issue?

As I noted earlier in the thread, I’ve gone through all the plugins. The theme dev and I spent a few hours on this trying to narrow it down. That doesn’t mean there’s not something we missed. There clearly is. But we did gain some stability and consistency.

1. With the Clicky plugin activated the profile doesn’t display properly.
2. Yoast’s Google Analytics plugin is messing up the Watching and Subscribed buttons.
3. Yoast’s is apparently causing the Go To Button issues as well

So, do you think that turning these off is a bandaid or are they the problems? I tend to think the former, since I have SP on another site where it’s working fine. However, I’m using BP profiles there, so can’t say whether the Clicky plugin is affecting it or not. And it’s a multisite, if that makes a difference. But I have both plugins activated there, and see no issues. It is using a premium theme, whereas this one is just a simple WPMUDev theme (Dixi). But when we switched to WP 2012 theme, it didn’t help either.

Confusing enough? At this point I realize it’s most likely nothing directly to do with SP, but if you have any more insights or ideas, I’d appreciate it.

Kind regards,

Joe

This is nuts.

I deactivated my “Ads by datafeedr” plugin and the profile works, but the buttons and image still don’t. With Clicky and datafeedr on, the profile doesn’t work. With either of them off, it seems to. But it remains inconsistent, so I still can’t be sure. With both of them on, sometimes it works anyway.

I’ve tried to go through all the plugins to see if there was one that was consistently affecting the others. I can’t find it. Could I have missed it? Certainly. I’m deactivating, then checking the profile a half dozen times. Usually it doesn’t work. Every now and then it does, but then doesn’t without me changing anything. It’s just crazy.

How does someone troubleshoot something like this? Maybe if I knew some code or something I’d recognize issues. But I’m mostly front-end, and mediocre even in that regard. This is just causing me to walk around in circles. I cover a lot of ground, but never get anywhere. :s

Thanks for all your help on this. You’ve helped me get somewhere at least.

When things get really problematic like this then sometimes it just comes down to brute force.

1. Deactivate ALL plugins except for SP. Test the fault areas. If still problems then…
2. Switch the WP theme for the WordPress default (or one of the supplied WP themes).

That will turn up any problems that are caused by the theme being used. Then it is a matter of rebuilding the pieces one by one and testing all areas between each one.

By the way _ there is a WP plugin called ‘plugin organiser’ that will – supposedly – allow you to turn off some plugins when  a particular page is displayed. This would enable plugins to be deactivated ONLY on the forum page for example. Some users have reported great success with this to save losing plugins they want to have active but do not need on the forum page. I have to say I tried it briefly a few months back and couldn’t get it to work but maybe I was just impatient!

Thanks, you’ve been a LOT of help.

One last question (for now ) – If I just turned off the plugins that are causing issues, do I still have an underlying problem that’s going to bite me later? I don’t understand the nature of these things. Is it a “as long as it works don’t worry about it” situation? or a “paint just covers the rust” one?

Thanks again,

Joe

Well, of course, it is a little of both. If something works as it should then leaving it alone to just get on with things is not necessarily a bad policy. But you may still just be ‘papering over the cracks’ as we say here in England. Perhaps it is just a trade-off. Me – personally – I like to make sure there are no conflicts or errors and I will not use plugins that cause them for whatever reason. Most people do not seem to be quite so dogmatic and their site works fine for them.

Thanks,

My ignorance is in my way of my dogmatism. It just takes me so long to figure something out – time that may be better served elsewhere… until it isn’t. :/