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Plugin Trouble Spoiling Your Blogging Fun?

Posted by Ilka Flood | Posted in Blogging | Posted on 20-08-2010

34

Plugin Trouble

Plugin Trouble

I believe each and every one of us bloggers has experienced some sort of plugin trouble at one point or another. Am I right? Those can be so frustrating. Especially when you can’t figure out what is wrong and why that darn thing isn’t working the way it is supposed to.

While I was pretty lucky so far, I had my first real experience with plugin trouble when I created my last blog post. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong.

What happened was, that I wanted to save time and re-use an image I had used on a previous blog post. Instead of uploading it again from my hard drive, I thought it was easier just to go into my WordPress Media Library and get it from there.

Not a good idea as it turned out.

I didn’t realize it though until I got an error message from one of my plugins with a lot of gobbledygook. You see, I have the “Yet Another Related Posts Plugin” installed and I guess that plugin didn’t like that I re-used that picture for another post.

Why?

Because I had already given that image a title, alternate text and caption which were unique to the previous blog post. So when I pulled it out of the WordPress Media Library and changed the title, alternate text and caption to suit the new blog post it messed something up in the “Another Related Posts Pluging” which created the gobbledygook error messages.

At first I didn’t realize that of course. So I kept deleting and rewriting my bog post, deleting and adding the image again, deactivating and reactivating the plugin. And so on.

I am not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to technical stuff. However, eventually it darned on me that it probably had to do with the values of the image.

So, I went into my image files on my desktop. Pulled that image up into PhotoShop and saved it as a completely different file.

Then I uploaded it into my post and gave it  a completey different title, alternate text and caption.

And voilà no more error messages. Plugin trouble solved.

Hold on. Not so fast!

While it did solve the problem last time, just before hitting “publish” on this blog post here today, I noticed the same error messages again. So,maybe it DIDN’T have anything to do with the image after all. But why then would what I did last time have worked?

In order to find some help, I went to the plugin website, but didn’t get very far. So I went on to the WordPress forum and ,voilà there were others who had the same plugin trouble. However, their threads for help weren’t answered in 5 days so I didn’t find a way to solve my problem..

So, as very last resort … I deactivated the plugin again until a solution is found. Who needs this headache anyway.

Hey, it would be great if you could share some of your own plugin trouble with us down in the comments below and what you did to solve it.

To Your Success!

Ilka Flood
The EnlightenedNetworker

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Comments (34)

Robert David Strong said on 20-08-2010

Hey Ilka,

I feel your pain, I have had a few plug in problems, and most of them always revolve around pictures of some sort. I have a gallery plugin on my blog under the gallery tab, and that plug in is the best one out there with the highest ratings. Unfortunalty I had so many problems because as we all know it different browsers act differently with programs. I have “stepped away from the plugin” because I used a few choice words and spent days on it, even broke a few pens.

I really need to go back in and add more pictures but don’t know that I want the frustration right now.

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 20th, 2010 at 6:18 pm

Hi Robert,

Yeah, I thought I had fixed the problem when I edited the image. Well, I did, but only for that one post.

This time I used a totally new image that I just bought today. Same problem.

Oh well, the joys of plugins. When they work they can be awesome. When they don’t, you better run for your aspirin :)

Thanks for stopping by and for your great comment!

Ilka

[Reply]
Josh Garcia said on 20-08-2010

Hey Ilka,

I’m sure you’ll figured it out. You are a very smart lady. Sometimes, wordpress needs a little break from all the activity your blog is receiving.

Just like the doctor says, ‘Take two and call me in the morning’. Let’s see how that works. :)

Have a great weekend…
Josh
Josh Garcia invites you to read..Is Guest Blogging Really Worth itMy Profile

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 21st, 2010 at 12:09 pm

Hi Josh,

I’ll try some other tricks and see what happens. Thanks for the advice on “taking two” :)

Enjoy your weekend!

Ilka

[Reply]
Jerome Ratliff said on 20-08-2010

Hi Ilka,

I love how you turned a negative, life sucking vampire experience into a positive post we all can learn from.

I’ve had my share of plugin dilemmas before, so I can relate with you here.

If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. I’d love to help you where I can.

Have a good and fun weekend,
Jerome Ratliff
Jerome Ratliff invites you to read..10 Ways to Pinpoint Your Niche MarketMy Profile

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 21st, 2010 at 12:12 pm

Hi Jerome,

Thank you so much for your offer of help! Right now though, I don’t think there’s anything you can do.

Have a great weekend and lots of fun at your convention next week!

Ilka

[Reply]
Ana | Traffic Generation Cafe
Twitter:
said on 20-08-2010

I really feel for your troubles, Ilka. It’s not fun to have no control to what happens to your blog.

My worst plugin problem caused my entire blog to disappear. So I had to go into my CPanel to fix it. Considering that was the first time I saw my CPanel, it was a fairly scary experience. I am better off for it though! :)

Thanks for sharing your problem; do let us know how it gets resolved.

Ana Hoffman
Ana | Traffic Generation Cafe invites you to read..New Tweet Button- The Good- The Bad- The UglyMy Profile

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 21st, 2010 at 12:17 pm

Hi Ana,

Oh wow, I hope that never happens to me. Although I have been in my cpanel many times I always tread very carefully there. Glad you were able to fix it. And you’re right, you’re better off because of it.

When I find a solution to my problem, I’ll be sure to post about it.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Ilka

[Reply]
Susanna Hess said on 21-08-2010

Hi Ilka,

All of these techy issues are a little scary to me since I don’t know as much as I’d like in this area.

I do like how you’ve taken a really nerve racking & time consuming problem, and created a positive blog post around it.

I don’t have any answers to your situation, but I hope you get it figured out soon.

Thanks for sharing.

Susanna

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 21st, 2010 at 12:20 pm

Hi Susanna,

Yeah, I know what you mean. I’m not a techie either, as you can see :)

Well, there’s always one solution, scrap the plugin and find another one. But that’s really my last resort, because I do like this one.

Thanks for stopping by and for your support!

Have a great weekend!

Ilka

[Reply]
Oliver Tausend
Twitter:
said on 21-08-2010

Hi Ilka,

good luck I haven’t had many of these errors. But who knows, in case of an error, it’s good to know where to find help. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Have a blessed weekend and take care

Oliver
Oliver Tausend invites you to read..Change Your Point Of ViewMy Profile

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 21st, 2010 at 12:24 pm

Hi Oliver,

Lucky you! :) Hope you never have to deal with any of these headaches … but … being realistic you’ll probably come across them eventually. But, being as smart as you are, you will probably figure them out a lot faster than me.

Have a sunny weekend!

Ilka

[Reply]
Mavis Nong
Twitter:
said on 21-08-2010

Hi Ilka,

I can just imagine your frustration… However, I like how you have turned your experience into a great post.

I haven’t got any plugin troubles to share at the moment.

Hope you get this sorted soon. Do let us know how you get on.

All the best,
Mavis Nong
Mavis Nong invites you to read..Still Struggling In Your Network Marketing BusinessMy Profile

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 21st, 2010 at 12:28 pm

Hi Mavis,

Yes, it’s frustrating. But then again that’s just part of a bloggers life, isn’t it? :)

I will definitely blog about it when I find a solution.

Until then, have an awesome weekend!

Ilka

[Reply]
Heather C Stephens said on 21-08-2010

Ilka, I loved this post.

I had an issue with a plugin that erased my blog a week or so ago. Thankfully I got on a chat with my hosting company and they were able to repair the file and put me back to work. It’s exhausting and frustrating to problem solve technical things for me, but I got another lesson in the benefits of asking for help and everything turned out ok.

I’m currently have issues with the link-within plugin on my blog. It keep showing the same 10 posts on everything and I’m not at all sure how to tweak it to show a variety of related posts. I’ve un-installed it and re-installed it but it didn’t seem to work.

Not sure what other options are out there to give me a photo and link to a related post, but I’m tired of trying to figure it out. I’ve decided to leave it as-is for the time being and focus on more productive things.

Great post and great take-away to turn lemons into lemonade!

Thanks for the great message,

Heather
Heather C Stephens invites you to read..Personal Branding for Network Marketers- Be Unforgettable!My Profile

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 21st, 2010 at 8:34 pm

Hi Heather,

I’m so sorry to hear that you are having problems with the “Link Within” plugin. That would have actually been my next choice. Well, now I’m not so sure anymore. Isn’t blogging and commenting a great resource? :)

I hope you get it figured out eventually. Good for you to come to the realization that there are more important things than fiddling with plugins :)

Don’t ya just love it?

Good luck to you!

Ilka

P. S. I know there are some bloggers who read my blog who have “Link Within” installed. So hopefully they will read your comment and will be able to help you.

[Reply]

Michaelé Harrington Reply:
August 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 am

Hi Heather,

If we are talking about the same Link Within, it’s a widget and not a plugin.

I use it and love it but it can be a little rough around the edges initially. What I do know is they have a great support team that usually fix things within hours. I’ve emailed them twice over different issues and what I found, was although they don’t seem to reply, they do fix the issue!

Thanks for the great reminder for me to email them again. I just remembered it keeps displaying an old thumbnail for a post I changed ages ago.

Michaelé
Michaelé Harrington invites you to read..The Secret To Maximizing Googles Latest Indexing UpdateMy Profile

[Reply]
Karen Newman said on 21-08-2010

I subscribe to the philosophy of “less is more” regarding plugins. Having been through the “I need to have every cool new plugin” I have now purged all but the essential ones…I’m feeling much lighter too! :)

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 10:54 am

Hi Karen,

I think you made a very wise decision. I don’t have that many plugins, but I think I can still weed out some. I’ll be evaluating which ones I actually need and which ones I don’t.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

Ilka

[Reply]
Michaelé Harrington said on 22-08-2010

Hi Ilka,

Wow it must be plugin disaster month as this week I had my first ever major scare since I started blogging!

I was just about to ping the search engines as I had updated content on my new biz review blog and I had this last minute thought… I’ll just quickly install a contact form before I ping.
So I simply followed the steps I knew to install a contact form and it didn’t work. Being impatient to get my pinging done, I thought I’ll just quickly reverse the steps and remove the ‘contact’ tab from the menu bar.
Next thing I know, I have no home page. Yikes! If you went to my URL it was just redirecting to an error page that said ‘contact’.

As the day went on it got worse as I had exhausted my list of people who are WP pros, and none of them could work out what on earth was going on.

Out of shear frustration, determination and fluke, I ended up fixing it myself! I started tinkering with different plugins and when I tinkered with one, more issues started so I uninstalled that particular plugin. Then just like magic, my blog was restored. Yay!

I wish I could help with your issue but it’s not a plugin I have. I hope someone pops by to resolve it for you soon :)

Michaelé
P.S. The issue I had was with the ‘redirection’ plugin. I found out later it had even somehow made a change to my permalink structure.
Michaelé Harrington invites you to read..The Secret To Maximizing Googles Latest Indexing UpdateMy Profile

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 10:57 am

Hi Michaelé,

Whoa! That sounded like a major headache. Even bigger than mine. I’m sure glad you got it all fixed. Kudos to you for not giving up until you did!

Since I have the ‘redirection’ plugin as well, I now know that to mess with it or anything that has to do with it. Thanks for the heads up!

Have a great week and thank you for your very valuable comment!

Ilka

[Reply]
Tweets that mention Plugin Trouble Spoiling Your Blogging Fun? | The Enlightened Networker -- Topsy.com said on 22-08-2010

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Michaelé Harrington and Lou , Josh Garcia. Josh Garcia said: Plugin Trouble Spoiling Your Blogging Fun? http://bit.ly/b8Onbl [...]
Stacy
Twitter:
said on 22-08-2010

Hi Ilka,

I’ve had a few issues with my plug-ins, but the one that caused me the most headaches was when I was first setting up my blog.

I started adding every single plug-in that anyone recommended. That was a huge mistake, I ended up with errors on comment luv and an entire part of my header was a blue bar.

It was a mess trying to sort everything out and with the help of the wonderful support staff at WP I was able to get it figured out at last. I ended up removing each plug-in and adding them in one at a time to figure out which ones were causing the issues.

Now whenever I add new plug-ins I always add one at a time and test it before adding a new one.
Stacy invites you to read..Simple Ways to Re-Engerize YourselfMy Profile

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 11:04 am

Hi Stacy,

That’s great advice! I made the same mistake in the beginning but wised up a bit since :)

It’s a good idea to check plugins one by one to see if they work together. Or if you’re already having trouble to find out which one is the culprit.

Sometimes when plugins upgrade to a newer version it happens that they cause problems with other ones too. So it always pays to be careful.

Thanks for stopping by and for your great input!

Ilka

[Reply]
Walter said on 23-08-2010

Oh boy, there are certain plugins that did mess up my blog. One of the major which I can’t resolve until now is that I cannot edit my post on WordPress. This all started when I installed the OIO publisher plugin . I did everything to find a solution but it has somehow altered the WordPress code. Everytime I hit the edit button on my dashbord, an error message occur.

I don’t know if it was a fluke but I have somehow find a solution via tweaking on the address bar. It seems that when I call on the edit function, it issues a wrong parameter. Whenever I want to edit my post, I have to alter the command on the address bar. :-)

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 11:12 am

Hi Walter,

Oh boy! That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. Wouldn’t it be easier just to uninstall that plugin altogether? Since it altered the WordPress code, maybe someone there could help you. Have you tried the forum?

I really hope you get it figured out. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your experience!

Have a great week!

Ilka

P.S. It’s very nice to meet you :)

[Reply]

Walter Reply:
September 1st, 2010 at 7:24 pm

I did uninstalled it but the damage has been done. Anyway, nice to meet you too Ilka. :-)
Walter invites you to read..What investment in life do you think is worthyMy Profile

[Reply]
Peter Fuller MBA
Twitter:
said on 23-08-2010

Hello Ilka

I had problems with YARPP producing error messages after I upgraded to their newest version as suggested by WordPress.

I emailed the developer who advised me that the new upgrade was beta only. So I reverted back to the old one.

Nothing worse than wasting valuable time with a buggy plugin.
Peter Fuller MBA invites you to read..The Law of Awareness – A Personal StoryMy Profile

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 6:48 pm

Hello Peter,

That’s very interesting as that’s about the same time my problems started.

So how do you revert back to the old version?

Thanks for stopping by and for your very valuable comment!

Talk soon,
Ilka

[Reply]
Dwayne Huggins said on 24-08-2010

I have very little patients with plugins that go wrong.

I generally try twice, then forget about them.

Strangely enough I have had problems with the comentluv plug in. It doesn’t like that I currently have disqus running.

I have tried a couple things to sort it but to no avail. I’ll try again soon when I have a bit of down time.

I am sure you will sort your problem soon.

Chat to you later
Dwayne
Dwayne Huggins invites you to read..Are You Talking To People Just Like YouMy Profile

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 24th, 2010 at 4:53 pm

Hi Dwayne,

I don’t blame you at all. There are certainly more important things to do. Like growing your business.

I have heard other people mention that CommentLuv isn’t very friendly to disqus. Hopefully things will change in the future as I see quite a few people using disqus for their comments.

Thanks for stopping by, Dwayne, and for your great comment! I appreciate you!

Ilka

[Reply]
Marcus Baker
Twitter:
said on 25-08-2010

Hi Ilka,

I have had enough problems with Plugins to write a book to be honest.

The one thing I have learned is not to panic and to understand that malfunction due to plugins is very possible and unavoidable sometimes.

At times we can fix the problem and at others times we simply have to get rid of them.

~Marcus
Marcus Baker invites you to read..Are you Killing Your MLM Blog by Writing a Post EverydayMy Profile

[Reply]

Ilka Flood Reply:
August 25th, 2010 at 5:53 pm

Hi Marcus,

Maybe you ought to write that book. Would probably become a New York Times bestseller. What do you think?

Start sharpening your pencils …

… and have an awesome week!

Ilka

[Reply]
Icechen1 said on 13-09-2010

On WordPress, it would be great to check out the reviews and bug reports of an certain plugin before installing it, verifying it’s compatibility with your WP version before you get an nasty surprise :)
Icechen1 invites you to read..RSS and Atom readers on Google ChromeMy Profile

[Reply]

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