Search not working with google autocomplete

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Sometimes the search does not appear to be working correctly particularly when using place names auto-filled but the google locations functionality.  The problem is usually to do with the google api key you are using having been restricted to your website domain.  Because the plugin performs a background google maps api longitude/latitude lookup on address entered in the search box this restriction will prevent this lookup from completing.  This is because background requests will present the domain of the hosting company of your website, not your website address and therefore get block.

Resolution

Remove any domain restrictions on your google maps api key.  Visit https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/get-api-key and click the link to got to the Goolge API Console

No properties – Plugin reporting “For some reason the WP Property Feed plugin cannot make background connections to other servers.”

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In order to communicate with the various feed APIs the plugin requires certain php functions to be enabled, some of which are disabled by default by some hosting providers.  Our plugin requires both curl and fopen to be enabled and if either is not this message will appear.

Resolution

Contact your hosting provider and request that both the curl and fopen functions be enabled on your account.

No Properties – schedules failing

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The plugin uses WordPress cron (wp-cron) to schedule the updating of the properties from the various feeds and sometimes this can be disabled by your hosting provider.   If you are unsure if this is the case we recommend instally the wordpress plugin WP-Crontrol which will give useful information about the status of wp-cron.

Resolution

Ask your hosting provider to enable WordPress cron (wp-cron) for your site.  If that is not possible you will need to manually trigger the updates or use an online service like https://cron-job.org/en/ to ping http://www.yoursitedomain.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron to trigger the schedule automatically.

Missing Properties in search results – Sold and Let properties

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By default the plugin will not display Sold or Let properties in search results.  If you require these to be displayed in your results then add the following filter to your theme functions.php file

function my_soldlet_view( $example ) {
    return 'show';
}
add_filter('wppf_query_wppf_soldlet', 'my_soldlet_view');

Missing Properties – properties are on my backend software but not on my website

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There could be a number of reasons why properties are not appearing on your website.  Please check the following;

  1. Have you got the appropriate flags set in your back office software to send the missing properties to the website feed.  Note this may be a different flag to your portal (Rightmove, Zoopla, etc) flag.
  2. Have you got the “store images locally” flag set in the plugin settings, if yes then untick this flag and run a force refresh.  If you have alot of properties the server could be timing out whilst downloading all the images.
  3. If all fails contact us and we will happily have a look and find out what is happening, we are confident we can get you going

Expired plugin

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If you have been trialing the plugin and run out of time and your plugin has expired please just contact us and we will issue you a new trial key.

Properties stopped updating: Troubleshooting WordPress Cron

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If you have a site where the properties were updating from your feeds that suddenly stops working the problem is most likely to do with plugin or theme causing the WordPress scheduler to stall. Unfortunately any plugin has a schedule running that goes into error it will stop all the other schedules from running also. This might be as a result of adding a new plugin or an errant plugin update and can unfortunately be very hard to pinpoint. The first you you should do is make sure that all plugins are up to date as getting the latest versions may well fix any errors that were present in the plugins. If that fails the official advise from WordPress is to disabled plugins until the schedules start to run again which is not all that helpful on a live site!!

We suggest that you install a WordPress plugin called Crontrol (just go to wp-admin > plugins and search and add it in from there). This plugin will show you a list of Cron Events where you can see all the schedules that are due to run, when they last ran and when they are new due. If you have a long list of schedules due to run “now” then you more than likely have an errant schedule in the list. The most likely culprit is the one that is at the top of the list! The schedule name will normally reveal which plugin it belongs to so disable that plugin and then give the scheduler 5 mins to run and see if the schedules are now running. You can trigger the schedule straight away by going to http://www.yoursitedomain.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron if you can’t wait (this doesn’t always work because WordPress puts a time limit on the use of this direct url). Once you see that the cron events are working again you will know what was preventing it and can let the plugin developer know.

Changing the WP Property feed property slug

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In some cases you might be using our plugin along side other plugins or themes that already use the slug /property/ for another Custom Post Type.  If that is the case you will see a clash and the display of either our properties of the existing custom post type may become garbled.  To change the default slug for our plugin use the following code snippet and place it in you theme’s functions.php file.

add_filter(‘wppf_filter_slug’,’my_property_slug’);
function my_property_slug($current) {
return ‘wppf_property’;
}

Change ‘wppf_property’ to whatever

Once this has been added to your function.php we recommend that you log into wp-admin and visit Settings > Permalinks and click the update button on this page.  This will refresh the WordPress permalink cache and make sure that the correct templates are then applied.