Critical Error Everywhere

Turkan.Turgut

I updated the plugins last night from the dashboard. WooCommerce was in the list and three or four others, and this morning every page of the shop shows "There has been a critical error on this website". The wp-admin too, so I can't even log in to switch anything off!

The site is on a Natro VPS that a helper set up for me years ago and he is not answering yet... I have the hosting panel with a file manager and I can open folders there, but I dont know what to look for. Is there something I can try to do myself?

tamara

Hi,

First check your mailbox: the one of the admin account. When this happens WordPress sends a mail with the subject something like "Your site is experiencing a technical issue" and it names the plugin that broke and has a link that lets you into the admin anyway, you have to click it from that mail...

I had the same thing in March with a theme update and my host's support told me to look for exactly that mail. I never knew it existed.

I do my updates once a month and this round I haven't run yet, so I'm curious which plugin it was. Do you remember the other three or four? https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/faq-troubleshooting/ has the steps for the mail and for the file manager way too.

BraveWalrus

Maybe I think I know which one it is. The WooCommerce 11.2 release notes have a warning that older versions of PublishPress Future ship their own copy of Action Scheduler and that copy crashes 11.2 on load, which is super close to what you describe, every page dead and not just the shop pages.

Do you have PublishPress Future on that site?

If yes, I'd open the file manager, go to wp-content/plugins and just rename the folder post-expirator to post-expirator-off. That is the folder name of that plugin. The site should come back straight away and then you update it from inside wp-admin and rename the folder back.

The notes are at https://developer.woocommerce.com/releases/ under 11.2. I'm not 100% sure the folder name is still post-expirator on newer installs, so someone confirm that please.

Turkan.Turgut

I looked for that mail and it is not in my inbox, the admin address is still the helper's one.

So i can't get in to see the plugin list.

Atif

I just checked, folder name is still post-expirator, the plugin page is https://wordpress.org/plugins/post-expirator/ and the slug in the URL is the folder. So BraveWalrus is right on that. Without the mail you do it blind, which is fine: 1) file manager, open wp-content/plugins, 2) rename post-expirator to post-expirator-off, 3) reload the shop in a private window.

If it still shows the error, it was another one of the four - then rename the folders you update last night one by one until it comes back... Which PHP version does Natro run on that VPS, it matters for later.

Turkan.Turgut

The shop is back! The folder was there: I renamed it and the pages load again.

I use that plugin for the sale prices. thx

BraveWalrus

Did you rename the folder back already? Don't, in your case that would just bring the error straight back because the old version is still in there.

Leave it on post-expirator-off for now.

Then log in to wp-admin, go to Plugins, Add New, Upload Plugin and upload the zip of PublishPress Future 4.10.4 or newer, that's the version where they stopped loading their own Action Scheduler, you can download the zip from the wordpress.org plugin page Atif linked.

Activate it after the upload. It installs next to the renamed folder so nothing fights.

Then check Products for your scheduled sale prices, they should still be there since the schedules sit in the database and not in the plugin folder, but I'm not 100% sure the old folder keeps nothing.

Try it and tell us what you see. Thanks

Turkan.Turgut

It worked! I uploaded 4.10.4 from the plugin page Atif linked, activated it and the sale for next week is still in the list so the old folder can go now I think.

I think marking yours as the solution, thanks all three of you. thx