I understand you would like a quick fix but as we don’t know what to fix or if the problem even lies with SP then I have no idea how to do anything quickly. I also have to add that this is clearly a totally unique issue which virtually always means something environmental your end – usually some sort of scripting conflict.

We have to start then, with some questions.

• You don’t mention the front, public side of the website. Is the TinyMCE editor working for forum posts?
• What is ‘WP Editor’? And if it adds items to the standard WP TinyMCE editor – is it completely up to date? When WordPress moved to TinyMCE V4 a couple of versions back a lot of things changed and many, many plugins that added buttons to the standard editor screwed up a lot of other plugins.
• It sounds like a JavaScript conflict to me, The odd thing there is that Simple:Press loads no JavaScript code to the admin side for the TinyMCE editor. Do you know how to use the web console to view script errors as that will propbably need to be done.
• Is everything else on your system up to date? WordPress itself and all plugins?
• Do things work when you try this with the latest default WordPress theme?
• As to the Simple:Press TinyMCE plugin itself – is it possible that you have a corrupted version for some reason? Check the SP plugin folder and ensure the name of the folder is, literally, ‘tinymce-richtext’. If it has been suffixed witha n umber – rename it.

That will probably do for starters…

• You don’t mention the front, public side of the website. Is the TinyMCE editor working for forum posts?

No, the SP TinyMCE editor is not showing on the public side.

• What is ‘WP Editor’? And if it adds items to the standard WP TinyMCE editor – is it completely up to date? When WordPress moved to TinyMCE V4 a couple of versions back a lot of things changed and many, many plugins that added buttons to the standard editor screwed up a lot of other plugins.

WP Edit is https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-edit/

• It sounds like a JavaScript conflict to me, The odd thing there is that Simple:Press loads no JavaScript code to the admin side for the TinyMCE editor. Do you know how to use the web console to view script errors as that will propbably need to be done.

No obvious JavaScrip errors or conflicts to me, with when you click on Components, (Editor), TinyMCE all you get is the loading gif in the top left corner and nothing loads.

• Is everything else on your system up to date? WordPress itself and all plugins?

Yep, everything is up to date, including the SP TinyMCE plugin.

• Do things work when you try this with the latest default WordPress theme?

No, I’ve tried, plus disabling all the other plugins.

Even when you disable the WP Edit plugin, (once the SP TinyMCE plugin is installed), to get the broken admin functions back you have to totally disable Simplepress, disactivating and deleting the SP TinyMCE plugin has no effect and then as soon as you reactivate Simplepress, the problems come again.

• As to the Simple:Press TinyMCE plugin itself – is it possible that you have a corrupted version for some reason? Check the SP plugin folder and ensure the name of the folder is, literally, ‘tinymce-richtext’. If it has been suffixed witha n umber – rename it.

No, the SP TinyMCE plugin is up to date and the folder name not corrupted.

When you say ‘no obvious JavaScript errors or conflicts’ does that mean there was nothing actually reported in the script console? It s the word ‘obvious’ I am unsure about as either there were reported errors or there were not…?

When I asked was it possible the plugin is corrupted I didn’t mean the folder name in that instance – I meant the whole download. It is very rare but just every now and then things have been known to corrupt during a download. We used to have a lot of problems with FileZilla doing this – for example. Always worth a quick re-download and replace the one on your sever – just in case.

But probably the next thing is to look for a php error. A fatal php error would result in no display so it is worth looking at your php error log to see if anything gets reported when the plugin is activated. Do you know where to look for that?

When you say ‘no obvious JavaScript errors or conflicts’ does that mean there was nothing actually reported in the script console? It s the word ‘obvious’ I am unsure about as either there were reported errors or there were not…?

There were no errors showing in the console, with me having a couple of people look at it and them not see anything either.

I’m quite happy to give you admin access to the site so that you can check.

When I asked was it possible the plugin is corrupted I didn’t mean the folder name in that instance – I meant the whole download. It is very rare but just every now and then things have been known to corrupt during a download. We used to have a lot of problems with FileZilla doing this – for example. Always worth a quick re-download and replace the one on your sever – just in case.

It was years ago that I purchased the plugin from you, so am unable to download it again without paying again, something I feel that I shouldn’t have to do.

But probably the next thing is to look for a php error. A fatal php error would result in no display so it is worth looking at your php error log to see if anything gets reported when the plugin is activated. Do you know where to look for that?

No PHP errors showing.

Good point on the download issue. And I can discuss that here. You will continue to be able to update it of course. And we can always email you a copy.

So – sorry to cover things again but it IS completely up to date yes? Version 3.2.2

So let’s backtrack. If you have had the plugin for years have you used it in the past? Did it work OK? And if so – what happened/changed to stop it working?

While searching for a solution, https://wordpress.org/support/topic/conflict-with-simple-press-tnymce?replies=16 seems like a similar problem, could it have any relevance? 

Good point on the download issue. And I can discuss that here. You will continue to be able to update it of course. And we can always email you a copy.

If you could e-mail me a copy, I can try reinstalling it, but the way it seems to have grabbed something on the database I will have to reinstall and start again with the whole site.

So – sorry to cover things again but it IS completely up to date yes? Version 3.2.2

Yep, it has updated to V3.2.2

So let’s backtrack. If you have had the plugin for years have you used it in the past? Did it work OK? And if so – what happened/changed to stop it working?

Yep, it’s worked fine on other sites I’ve had/done, (ages since I used Simplepress in a site though), but it is this new site I’m doing that is causing the problem.

The problem you linked to: A while back, the WP team exposed TinyMCE so that plugins could use it. We took advantage of this to rewrite our plugin to use the WP instance. However, a lot of plugins that added a button or extra functionality to the editor, tried to load their code in both the admin (i.e., write posts) AND the front end. And because their support code was not geared to the front-end it caused any plugin making use of TinyMCE on the public side – like SP – to fail. Generally authors were hooking their editor extensions into the WP ‘init’ hook which loads on both back and front ends. They should have been using the ‘admin_init’ hook.

Just out of interest – when you looked for script errors in the console did you try loading the faulty admin panels AND the front end SP editor in a topic? I feel sure that one of those must show an error of some sort. It makes no sense otherwise.

I think you need to locate the conflict. Starting, perhaps, with this WP Edit plugin. And you do not need to deactivate SP by the way. Just temporarily renaming the TinyMCE plugin folder should be enough.

“We took advantage of this to rewrite our plugin to use the WP instance.”

From that, possibly updating SP.TinyMCE from V1.0.3, (the core version I purchased a few years ago), to V3.2.2 in one hop may be the problem, could it be leaving some files in the update that is the cause? I’ve even tried updating starting all over again and updating your TinyMCE plugin before activating, but still the same

Could I try from scratch again using an up to date version of the plugin from scratch as you suggested and I asked above?

I think you need to locate the conflict. Starting, perhaps, with this WP Edit plugin. And you do not need to deactivate SP by the way. Just temporarily renaming the TinyMCE plugin folder should be enough.

I’ve tried everything I know to locate the conflict, that’s why I have come here and paid to ask for specialist help from the developer, (that I feel I am not getting), with changing the name of the TinyMCE folder doing nothing, the only way to get the broken WP functions back being to disable Simplepress.

I don’t think that this is a good advertisement for what is a premium product and premium support, it shouldn’t need an expert in PHP and Javascript to get a plugin to update on a site 

hard to follow your comments since I cant see a pattern for the colors..

you say you tried to locate the conflict?  so I assume then you switched to the default wp theme?  and it was still an issue?  if so, then you disabled all other wp plugins? and still an issue?  at this point, probably not so then you could re-enable plugins one by one until it breaks then you will know the conflict…

our premium support is for simple press, not other wp themes or plugins…

its likely one of them adds buttons to the wp editor in the admin, but perhaps hooks in wrong assuming its only used in the backend… but the wp editor fully supports front end usage…

sorry, if I just missed it, but can you pass a link to your forum?  we might be able to see what the conflict is looking at the page source…

Thank you for your input Mr Papa

http://psl-hell.com/forum/ is a link to my forum, with me also being happy to provide you with admin access to the site if that will help.

Also, I haven’t added any buttons yet using WP Edit.

I’ve build quite a few forums in the past using Simplepress, (I don’t consider there is a better forum out there, stand alone or WP compatible), but this problem is really having me ripping my hair out

I’d like to add that this is not a commercial project for me, I am facing homelessness in the next month or 2, (it being the middle of winter here in the UK), due to the Private Sector Leasing scheme I am housed under here in the UK, a scheme that has major problems and I am developing the site in an attempt to expose these problems to hopefully stop others going through what I have 

first, it seems you have some sort of facebook plugin or other that is causing js errors on page loads…  dont know for sure if related or not…

also, what happens with wp-edit disabled?

wp edit is clearly trying to take over the simple press wp editor….  we just use the wp editor on the front end…  its not clear to me that it understands/knows that we are using the wp editor on the front end… not sure its loading everything it needs or expects from the standard usage in the admin… but make no mistake, wp fully supports the editor being used on front end…

hard to tell from the page source, but it also appears it might be assuming there is only the one wp editor – the standard one for making pages and posts… so it might be failing because wp editor allows multiple instances plus front end usage…

are there any options for this plugin?  can it be disabled for wp editor front end usage?  it says its successor to ultimate tinymce, but simple press works with that one (and its still supported)… but the wp core tinymce dev wrote the plugin so was sure to follow wp editor api..

to be clear, cannot say for sure that wp edit is instantiating/using wp editor wrong but seems potential…  but also gets back to my question of what happens with it disabled…  could be theme interaction with it if its ‘recommended’…  and remember, our tinymce plugin does not load ANYTHING from js perspective on the admin (only the options panels), so no interaction there…  that could be just an ajax hijacking…

if you want to PM yellow swordfish, Ike and myself some admin credentials (both wp and sp capabilities), we could take a look… but we normally wont play with active plugins or themes because we dont want to mess up any setups..  but could look at ajax responsive of the admin panels…

Right – first thing. Actually – might be the only thing…

There is this error being thrown. Actually – this is a php error and should be in the php error log you looked at yesterday:

/…/psl-hell.com/wp-content/sp-resources/forum-plugins/tinymce-richtext/library/sp-tinymce-init.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory

So – either there is something wrong with the folder – or – the folder in question has no permission to be opened and read by php server code. You need to check that…

1. the folder and file exist on the server at that location (shown in the message)
2. the folder and file permissions are correct. Normal settings are 755 for a folder and 644 for a file.
3. the GUID and UID are set correctly. The are the group and user ownership. Ensure they are set exactly the same as the WordPress ‘wp-content’ parent folder.

If all of these check out as being absolutely correct then the next thing would be top deactivate these so-called security plugins you have active as they can also stop plugins retrieving files from folders in some cases.

I will also attach a zip of the plugin ion a PM to you so you can replace it.