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Bug #11249

closed

Event entries being spontaneously deleted

Added by Naomi Barrettara about 5 years ago. Updated almost 5 years ago.

Status:
Resolved
Priority name:
Normal
Assignee:
-
Category name:
WordPress Plugins
Target version:
Start date:
2019-03-20
Due date:
% Done:

0%

Estimated time:
Deployment actions:

Description

Hi Commons Team,

I got a complaint from the APOs who use the Room Booking Website for Music on the Commons (https://musicroombooking.commons.gc.cuny.edu/) that events are "disappearing" or being "deleted" after the person is "positive" they have entered and saved correctly. The plugin being used is "Events Manager", and several years ago I set a whole system of category tags to popular specific "events" into specific places and pages of the website. I am not sure if this is actually a technical error or user error, but I promised the APO I would ask for help and look into it. I think it has happened a handful of times, but beyond that, I have very little specific info.

I know this is a very vague help request, but anything info you can suggest that I can pass along would be appreciated! The APO who asked me for help is Patrice Eaton, and she can also be reached directly at
<>.

THANK YOU!!!

- Naomi

Actions #1

Updated by Boone Gorges about 5 years ago

  • Status changed from New to Reporter Feedback

Hi Naomi - Sorry to hear about the problems.

Could you please ask the APOs to provide information about one or more specific examples of an event "disappearing"? If they don't have this info for events that have already been created, perhaps they could wait until it happens again, and then note the info? Without specifics, I'm afraid I'm unable to do any deeper digging.

Actions #2

Updated by Naomi Barrettara about 5 years ago

Boone Gorges wrote:

Hi Naomi - Sorry to hear about the problems.

Could you please ask the APOs to provide information about one or more specific examples of an event "disappearing"? If they don't have this info for events that have already been created, perhaps they could wait until it happens again, and then note the info? Without specifics, I'm afraid I'm unable to do any deeper digging.

Hi Boone,

I just scanned through the initial email chain I was looped into about the request, and the example that was included was for an event that username "peaton" would have created on 2019/03/20, from 1:30-4:30pm in Practice Room A (which is event category ID 245232 in the Events Manager plugin). She added the event into the system on March 10, 2019, and then noticed it was missing/deleted/ not displaying on the calendar by March 18th, 2019.

Is the kind of info you are looking for? Or should I ask her for more specifics?

Actions #3

Updated by Boone Gorges about 5 years ago

Thank you, this is a helpful start. I see a number of entries created that day, by that user, in the Practice Room A category:

| 16893 | Jocelyn Lai    | 2019-03-10 14:17:56 | publish     |
| 16906 | Giordana Fiori | 2019-03-10 14:46:20 | publish     |
| 16907 | Giordana Fiori | 2019-03-10 14:48:53 | publish     |
| 16908 | Clare Monfredo | 2019-03-10 14:50:39 | publish     |

Of these, only the first one had start/end times on 3/20: 7pm-9pm UTC, which is 2-4pm NYC time.

It would help to narrow it down if I knew the name of the user that appears in the post_title field for the missing entry.

I looked through the database and did not find any skipped or missing post IDs, which would indicate content that is truly deleted. So, whatever happened here, it must be that something was overwritten or modified in an unintended way.

Actions #4

Updated by Naomi Barrettara almost 5 years ago

Boone Gorges wrote:

Thank you, this is a helpful start. I see a number of entries created that day, by that user, in the Practice Room A category:

[...]

Of these, only the first one had start/end times on 3/20: 7pm-9pm UTC, which is 2-4pm NYC time.

It would help to narrow it down if I knew the name of the user that appears in the post_title field for the missing entry.

I looked through the database and did not find any skipped or missing post IDs, which would indicate content that is truly deleted. So, whatever happened here, it must be that something was overwritten or modified in an unintended way.

Boone Gorges wrote:

Thank you, this is a helpful start. I see a number of entries created that day, by that user, in the Practice Room A category:

[...]

Of these, only the first one had start/end times on 3/20: 7pm-9pm UTC, which is 2-4pm NYC time.

It would help to narrow it down if I knew the name of the user that appears in the post_title field for the missing entry.

I looked through the database and did not find any skipped or missing post IDs, which would indicate content that is truly deleted. So, whatever happened here, it must be that something was overwritten or modified in an unintended way.

Hi Boone,

The first entry in that list, titled "Jocelyn Lai" was the entry that Patrice Eaton said did not display properly on the front end, or "disappeared".

She just reported another instance of this that we can check: she claims that on March 22, 2019 she entered an event into the system titled "Cong Ji" for a time slot of 3:45 - 5:45pm on March 27th, in the Practice Room B category (ID 245234). She claims she created it, but then it "disappeared" or did not display on the calendar end.

I suspect that this issue is user error - maybe she is not indicating the correct category, or not saving the event properly. But I am not entirely sure. I looked through the "past events" in the dashboard, and this entry is not showing up in any event category. So from my end, it looks like she simply didn't save it properly.

So I think my two questions are:

1) Can you look at the entries created on March 22, similar to what you did for March 10, too see if she actually successfully entered an event titled "Cong Ji"? (There is no evidence of it in the past events list in the dashboard.)
2) Regarding the entry from March 10, titled "Jocelyn Lai", is there any more details available about that entry? That entry I can see in the "past events" in the dashboard, but she claims it was not displaying on the front end.

Thank you!

Thank you?

Actions #5

Updated by Boone Gorges almost 5 years ago

Hi Naomi - Thanks so much for collecting these details.

I see two entries created on March 22 with the name 'Cong Ji':

| 17045 | 2019-03-22 14:16:21 | Cong Ji    |
| 17046 | 2019-03-22 14:22:49 | Cong Ji    |

Here are the corresponding edit links:
https://musicroombooking.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-admin/post.php?post=17045&action=edit&classic-editor
https://musicroombooking.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-admin/post.php?post=17046&action=edit&classic-editor

By the looks of things, the requested time for https://musicroombooking.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-admin/post.php?post=17046&action=edit&classic-editor was 3:45-5:45 on March 27, but the entered time was 2:30-4:30 on March 26. See https://musicroombooking.commons.gc.cuny.edu/events/2019-03-26/?category=245235

My guess is is that this is due to user error. The APOs probably handle more than one of these requests at once, and it's likely that someone was looking at the wrong email (or whatever) while entering data for these items. Does that seem feasible to you?

Actions #6

Updated by Raymond Hoh almost 5 years ago

Hi Naomi, does what Boone mention sound correct to you?

Actions #7

Updated by Naomi Barrettara almost 5 years ago

Raymond Hoh wrote:

Hi Naomi, does what Boone mention sound correct to you?

Hi Boone and Raymond,

Yes! What Boone described is likely what happened. I talked with the APO again, and suggested that she double check the bookings on the front end immediately after finishing entering a batch, to try and catch any entry errors right away.

And it was helpful to be able to provide "proof" that there was no evidence of hacking or malicious deletions going on!

Thank you so much for all of your help - I think we can consider the issue officially "fixed" :)

Actions #8

Updated by Raymond Hoh almost 5 years ago

  • Category name set to WordPress Plugins
  • Status changed from Reporter Feedback to Resolved
  • Target version set to Not tracked

Thanks for the update, Naomi, and thanks to Boone for his detective work!

Marking as resolved.

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