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Error Message on Multi Site plus some glitches

1) There is an error message that displays when I add or edit products in this multi-site WordPress/WooCommerce store. This is the error message: The backup of this post in your browser is different from the version below. This will replace the current editor content with the last backup version. You can use undo and redo in the editor to get the old content back or to return to the restored version.
2) I think there are other issues on this site also. I have these products for sale on two sites. Subtleimpressions.com and kegcollarsonline.com They are the two main websites in this multisite installation. There are a few other sites, but I am not using them yet. When an item sells on one site, it reduces the inventory on that site, but does not reduce it on the other site. For example, there is a product called Blank Bottle Carriers which are sold by the case. There were 20 cases available. 7 sold on one site and 2 sold on the other. However both sites are tracking inventory individually. Neither site reduces the inventory when a sale occurs from the other site.
3) There appears to be SEO problems where Google is not able to index the sites or at least not index all of the pages and products. I think something has gone wrong with the structure of the multi site.
4) Possible hacking, I noticed that people were able to create sub domains and register as users of some crazy sounding subdomains which should not have existed. I have deleted those users and subdomains, but am concerned about people hacking into these sites.
Your team has the most knowledgeable people I know for fixing Multi-Site and I appreciate your help. Thanks in advance for any recommendations or solutions to these issues.

Thu, 7 May 2020 20:55:49
  • Nithin Ramdas
    • Support Wizard

    Hi Jon Rodman ,

    1) There is an error message that displays when I add or edit products in this multi-site WordPress/WooCommerce store. This is the error message: The backup of this post in your browser is different from the version below. This will replace the current editor content with the last backup version. You can use undo and redo in the editor to get the old content back or to return to the restored version.

    In general, this occurs if the products are edited at one time and the browsers local storage has a different version. Could you please try clearing the browser cache and history to see whether it makes any difference?

    I tested on your main site by creating a test product and also by editing the existing product but wasn’t able to replicate. Are you noticing this with any specific products?

    Please check the following link on how to clear cache for the specific browser:
    https://www.refreshyourcache.com/en/home/

    2) I think there are other issues on this site also. I have these products for sale on two sites. Subtleimpressions.com and kegcollarsonline.com They are the two main websites in this multisite installation. There are a few other sites, but I am not using them yet. When an item sells on one site, it reduces the inventory on that site, but does not reduce it on the other site. For example, there is a product called Blank Bottle Carriers which are sold by the case. There were 20 cases available. 7 sold on one site and 2 sold on the other. However both sites are tracking inventory individually. Neither site reduces the inventory when a sale occurs from the other site.

    Since the subsite is mapped I’m not able to access its dashboard via support access. However, this doesn’t sound like a default behaviour of WooCommerce and seems to be an add-on plugin that performs such action. I suppose it’s the WooCommerce Multistore plugin which is used to share the same products in different subsites? Sounds like the query is more specific to the workflow of the WooCommerce Multistore plugin, I’m afraid what I could find regarding that plugin workflow is limited, would highly recommend checking this with their support to ensure if there is anything being missed or not.

    3) There appears to be SEO problems where Google is not able to index the sites or at least not index all of the pages and products. I think something has gone wrong with the structure of the multi site.

    Do you notice any error message? Did you try submitting the sitemap as mentioned here:
    https://yoast.com/help/submit-sitemap-search-engines/

    4) Possible hacking, I noticed that people were able to create sub domains and register as users of some crazy sounding subdomains which should not have existed. I have deleted those users and subdomains, but am concerned about people hacking into these sites

    I ran a Defender scan and I don’t see anything specific in general regarding any possible hacks. There are 4 files listed from plugins under Defender Pro > Malware Scanning, and they seem to be a false positive. However, would recommend you to double-check by comparing the files with the latest version of the plugin to ensure they aren’t any modifications made on those listed files.

    Such issues could also occur due to spam registrations. If the subsites aren’t meant to be created by users then you could only keep the ” User accounts may be registered” option enabled as shown below:
    [attachments are only viewable by logged-in members]

    The above action should ensure creating new subsite is disabled. Also, you could enable the Masked Login area under Defender Pro > Advanced Tools which should also help with preventing spam registrations by renaming the default /wp-admin page where the spambots would try to target spam registrations.

    Please do see whether that helps and how it goes. Looking forward to your response. Have a nice day ahead.

    Best Regards,
    Nithin

  • Jon Rodman
    • Lightning Mine

    You are probably correct about the cache issue. I have had problems with cache on my PC for years. I cleared the cache and tried a different browser, but still have the backup post message displaying. As long as it is my PC and not the site, then I will ignore that message. Thanks for clearing that up.

    That is a good idea about submitting new sitemaps. I have not done that since converting this from a single site to MultiSite and that is about the same time as when the SEO went bad.

    I did not know about the logged in users may register new sites. I should have not checked that when setting this up. I also discovered why the products were not syncing between sites and fixed that. It was that WooCommerce was not Network Enabled and instead was installed on each site. Once Network Enabled that solved some other issues.
    Thanks for all of your help! That has solved all of the issues.