Good news! Today we released Prime Mover 1.2.6. This is part of our 2-weeks maintenance release cycle. Although a minor release, it covers some very important changes. Please check out below!
Change log
= 1.2.6 =
- Fixed: Removed deprecated zip extension dependency.
- Fixed: Runtime errors caused by cached plugin drop-in files and activated caching.
- Fixed: Added error controls when restoring deprecated zip package.
- Fixed: Runtime error during search replace due to null byte in localized setups.
- Fixed: Runtime error associated with network activated plugin.
What is new?
- Deprecated zip removal – this change means that Prime Mover no longer checks for strict PHP zip extension dependency. It is because zip is no longer used for creating packages with Prime Mover. This has already been deprecated several releases ago. The good news with this change is that you can now activate Prime Mover plugin in hosting servers that don’t have PHP zip extension installed ! How cool was that ? Obviously if you are restoring a very old backup (which is still using zip) on a server that don’t have zip, it shows warning that you still need to have zip extension enabled.
- Caching plugins compatibility – caching plugins has it’s own way of doing unique things in WordPress. For example, it added cache drop-in files to your WordPress content directory which you might seen already such as advanced-cached.php or db.php and many more. When your target site uses caching, restoration is a bit tricky. You cannot just disable caching plugins and delete all of its traces of installation. Prime Mover handles this by temporarily deactivating caching and removing these cache drop-in files so they won’t interfere during restoration. Once restored, you need to purge all cache and these drop-in files (including the main caching functionality) should be re-generated and caching should automatically work. We tested this change with one of the most commonly used caching plugin W3TC Total cache.
- Improved compatibility with search and replace in localized languages – there is a strange runtime error observed caused by null byte on search and replace process. This only occurs when using non-English WordPress installations . This produces runtime error: Uncaught Error: Cannot access property started with ‘\0’. Searching this in WordPress forums, its a bit common issue affecting search and replace plugins. The only feasible solution found that is suggested is to downgrade to PHP 5.6. Although this is proven to be a workaround, this is not a good one. PHP 5.6 is a very old PHP version and this should be fixed inside the plugin. Luckily this has been fixed already and this should no longer be an issue regardless of whatever PHP version used (PHP 5.6 -> 7.0+ onwards).
- Improved compatibility with network activated plugins – when Prime Mover restored a network activated plugin (in a multisite), this is handled just like any plugin. It is deactivated first (on the network) and then Prime Mover copies all files needed. Once this process is done for that single network activated plugin, it is re-activated. The downside with this procedure is that network activated plugin could introduce conflicts to subsite migration since this is network activated. The effect is even more profound on main site restoration (PRO version). The side effects could cause runtime errors, or can freeze the restoration. The compatibility added is that network activation is deferred to later stages and is done only after database import , table rename prefix and search replace functionality completed. This will ensure that once network activated, all needed data by these plugins are in-placed.
What’s next?
In the next release, we will focus on removing strict checks on wp-config.php writability. Currently, Prime Mover cannot be activated when wp-config is not writable by the server. It is because Prime Mover needs this dependency so it can write things to wp-config.php as required during restoration process. This handling needs to be improved in the next version. This means that Prime Mover can now be activated even hosting that don’t allow wp-config.php to be writable. The specifications for this fix and how it is done still needs to be finalized. We are targeting this to be included in the next maintenance release. Stay tuned, if you have some questions or see issues in the latest release. Please don’t hesitate to contact us.