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WordPress Plugin problems (Updated regularly)

WordPress has the worst support forums. They’re very difficult to use. They are exclusive and they don’t like criticism at all. You can get booted off, if you can figure out how to post a question. It’s one of the downsides of using WordPress for your website.

Usually, you don’t have to deal with it. But, if you do struggle through WordPress and its often poorly designed plugins, you are familiar with the hassles.

What we want to do is post (newest first) problems as we experience them. Comment on them in the comment section below. We’ll start a Facebook Page to help.

Don’t waste your time on the WordPress forum for this or other plugins. They are useless.

Thanks.

Jan. 26, 2018
The-event-calendar by Modern Tribe

This is a basic plugin that offers some simple benefits, but it is lacking in real pizzaz. (No photos in the display, for example, only in the post.) We’re using it until we find something better, but will be looking soon.

Biggest problem with The Event Calendar plugin is that it doesn’t upgrade cleanly. If you purchased the Event Calendar Pro from Modern Tribe, you are even in worse shape. The plugin is an Annual Subscription. You never really buy it. You borrow it. We tried it and for what they offer, it’s not worth it. The costs are $89 a year, $149 a year and $299 a year (ouch or outrageous) depending on how many websites you have.

These are the worst kinds of plugins, the ones that force you to lease their crappy software.

We did it one year, and that’s it. As you know, we want WordPress to separate paid plugins into two groups, one where you can buy it outright, and another where they bleed you to death annually by forcing you to pay annual subscription costs that are more expensive than the annual cost of operating a good website.

Now, when we try to update the plugin — some plugins update like a flu virus every week — you get this error message:

Update Failed: body {font-family: ‘Helvetica’, Sans-Serif;text-align: center;background-color: #77c043;color: #fff;}.container {position: relative;top: 50%;transform: translateY(-50%);}.subheader {font-size: 16px;line-height: 22px;font-weight: normal;margin: 20px auto;text-align: left;width: 500px;font-weight: 200;}502 (Bad Gateway) ErrorSomething's gone wrong, but it's likely temporary. Try refreshing the page, but it'd be best to try back later.This page error has the following parameters:clientIP – ::ffff:71.239.111.67gatewayHostname – starkgate-p05.cloud.phx3.gdgoriginDomain – suburbanchicagoland.comresolvedOriginDomain – suburbanchicagoland.com

What does this mean? Who knows and who cares. Mondern Tribe doesn’t. They got your money for one year. If they don’t get it every year, don’t expect much help at all. Don’t expect any help, though. The forums are useless, like we said.

Avoid Modern Tribe and find an alternative. You will save yourself a lot of headaches.

RAY HANANIA

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.