Well the website url field is shared with the WordPress profile page where you can also enter the url. Might you have something active preserving whatever is entered into the WP profile page?
Not that I know. And as mentioned I’d deactivated all other plugins just now. I also switched the theme. So there was only S:P running.
Also as mentioned, if I change the URL in my S:P profile it does update in the backend, no problem. But S:P just keeps showing the original value afterwards. Curiously, if I edit someone else’s S:P profile it DOES reflect the new value afterwards. I can’t make any rhyme nor reason of this right now.
I still cannot replicate this behaviour on your site. I just logged back in and tried to change my website entry and it updated and saved just fine…
Thank you, that actually gave me the right idea. I just logged in with the test profile and was also able to update the URL, several times. That was until I went into the other profile on the site which uses Universal Profiles Made Easy. After I changed the URL there changes in S:P no longer stuck. Mystery, sort of, solved. Because they do technically stick, as said, but they no longer reflect on S:P’s side unless I nudge it again either via UPME or the WP backend.
Well, one more test. I went into the backend and edited “Website”. So I added a URL and hit “Update Profile”. Reloaded to make sure it stuck. Then I deleted the URL and hit “Update Profile”. I reloaded to make sure it was gone. Then I went under my S:P profile and yup, the URL is still showing. And it keeps showing even after multiple reloads. I still can’t figure out why this is happening though.
We use WP Super Cache but the forum page is excluded. In addition to that the forum can only be accessed by logged in users. Beyond that we use cloudflare but again I added a page based exception and all caching is off for the forum page. Nevertheless I did purge that cache, for good measure, with no effect.
I also went through the S:P caches and cleared all those.
The data you are saying can not be changed (the web URL) is NOT a part of SP but is a part of the WP profile. It is stored in the usermeta table along with other WP profile data. We expose it in SP in the same way that we expose other WP profile data like the description and email for example.
Under no circumstances do we not change it f a change is made in the SO profile. It goes through the same routines as our other data and the WP data we expose.
If you have trouble with other data might it also be the data that ‘belongs’ to WP?
Yes, I am aware of all of that. In fact, if I delete the URL in SP it does get deleted in WP. But when I reload the SP profile it “magically” reappears – even though the URL field in WP is now empty. It definitely looks like some kind of caching – but only on this one field. All other fields in SP are updated just fine.
I have spent several hours on this now but haven’t come any closer to a solution. While it is a minor issue it can (and will) cause confusion for many of our students at some point. If I can’t figure out what going on I might just have to abandon SP profiles and set an alternative in the SP options.
I have equally spent a long time on it and, I am afraid, try as I might I can not replicate your issue at all.
Can I suggest you try the same thing on your profile on this site? Delete it and see if it reappears?
It’s a conflict between Simple:Press and User Profiles Made Easy, I confirmed this with some testing now.
Here’s what I did:
UPME comes with a user cache for quicker searches. I am assuming there is some kind of conflict between SP cache and UPME cache. Not sure why it only affects the URL field though, still investigating. I’ll contact the UPME developers as well.
More or less what I expected.
Just to be sure though – there is NO caching on the shared WP profile data on the SP side of things. Every display of that data is retrieved from the DB at display time – for the very reason of it being shared.
Good to know. I’ll take all that information to the UPME developers. I consider this resolved from an SP perspective. I do have another issue with a mobile template, will open a separate thread for that.
Quick update. I’ve forgone contacting the developers as I decided to deactivate all profile fields and instead added a note and a link to the main profile in the “Overview” description. I’ve streamlined the SP profile down to just forum options. This is working rather well for us as we really only want one profile for our students to edit.
I know this is going to be a bit far fetched but may it be possible, in a future update, to include an option for say a custom link and a message that could be included on the profile page to direct to a separate profile edit page while leaving forum options in their current place? Currently I can only redirect the entire profile to another page but in my case some options such as watches, subscriptions, time zone, etc. could/should remain under the forum itself.
Or to put it differently could profile editing and forum specific options be in separate places with a clear link/tab/button from the forum options to the profile edit page?