Tags constantly disappear in new posts

[moriartyviccar]

Describe the bug
When adding tags into the box, they appear, then randomly disappear from the box. They don't save unless they then reappear. Which has happened on occasion.
There's also no frequently used tags option which was vital to my work in the classic editor.
Using latest Gutenberg Version

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Go to 'New Post'
2. Click on 'Tags box, write in a tag and use either a comma or enter to add the tag'
3. Tag(s) will disappear. Sometimes will reappear with no consistency or pattern.
4. Most recent article I wrote was about subculture aesthetics in The Flash tv series. I used at least 10 tags which were previously unused, so had to be manually input. It only registered one.
5. I can go into All Posts, select my article and use the Quick Edit to add tags. But I shouldn't have to.

Expected behavior
When tags are entered they should be saved to the post and not simply disappear.
Frequently Used tags would be extremely beneficial to the system.

Screenshots
Sadly this is not something I can screenshot and don't have a video screen capture.

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: Windows 10
• Browser Chrome
• Version Up to date

Additional context

• Please add the version of Gutenberg you are using in the description.
• To report a security issue, please visit the WordPress HackerOne program: https://hackerone.com/wordpress.

[hamannjames]

What theme are you using? Also, are there any plugins installed that might hook into the tags feature?

[moriartyviccar]

I'm using a third party theme called Titan. It is quite old and we are moving over to a new one, but haven't got it formatted yet. I don' think we have a plug in that uses tags as we've always used the Wordpress built in feature which has worked perfectly.

[hamannjames]

One test might be to switch to another theme and try to recreate the problem. Or if that doesn't work try deactivating plugins one by one and seeing if it gets fixed. I know that is a very tech support type answer (did you try turning in off and back on again?) but it sounds to me like it might be a theme/plugin issue, just by what you described.

…

On Sun, Jan 13, 2019 at 3:54 AM moriartyviccar ***@***.***> wrote: I'm using a third party theme called Titan. It is quite old and we are moving over to a new one, but haven't got it formatted yet. I don' think we have a plug in that uses tags as we've always used the Wordpress built in feature which has worked perfectly. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#13282 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ARYZGztzCj7uENDwRpr0f4I0btck6D3eks5vCx56gaJpZM4Z6e6x> .

-- - James Hamann Web Developer United Way of King County 206-496-7825

[hamannjames]

Also according to this post:

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/my-tags-disappear-after-i-typed-it/

Turning on script debugging in your wp-config.php file might help.

[moriartyviccar]

Thank you so much for this, it looks like it was the Debug issue so far, but I'll go the route of disabling everything if it turns out not, in the long run. :)

[moriartyviccar]

Any news on adding the Most used tags option again?

[hamannjames]

I don't work for the Gutenberg team or anything so I have no idea about that feature but I am looking to contribute, so maybe I'll try starting there! Also, do you see any new console errors after turning on the debug feature? It'd be interesting to see what javascript errors are being thrown, that might give a clue as to why the tag feature wasn't working before. I'd try opening your dev tools and the console then adding a tag and see what shows up.

Glad it helped!

[moriartyviccar]

Ahh sorry, I thought you were staff or might know :) I'll keep an eye out for it. Seems the problem has reappeared now, so I'm going to try the theme idea :)

[moriartyviccar]

I've changed the theme back as that wasn't it. I've just disabled all plug ins and it's still doing it. It seems to cope if they're not entered at a fast rate. Without the Most Used system, I type them in fast as I don't have the time to do it slowly. I had to change that text in wp-config back to false because I kept getting this:

Warning: mysqli_real_connect(): (42000/1203): User steampv6_wo2725 already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections in /home2/steampv6/public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1531

Deprecated: mysql_connect(): The mysql extension is deprecated and will be removed in the future: use mysqli or PDO instead in /home2/steampv6/public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1562

Warning: mysql_connect(): User steampv6_wo2725 already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections in /home2/steampv6/public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1562
Error establishing a database connection
This either means that the username and password information in your wp-config.php file is incorrect or we can’t contact the database server at localhost. This could mean your host’s database server is down.

Are you sure you have the correct username and password?
Are you sure that you have typed the correct hostname?
Are you sure that the database server is running?
If you’re unsure what these terms mean you should probably contact your host. If you still need help you can always visit the WordPress Support Forums.

[jeherve]

This constantly happens to me as well, with multiple themes and plugins setups. The slower the site, the more often it seems to happen. When writing a new post, I am now used to typing the same tags over and over again until it eventually sticks.

Here is how it usually looks (this is on a single site running WP 5.1.1, PHP 7.3, without any plugins installed except for Gutenberg v. 5.5.0, and with the Twenty Nineteen theme).

https://videopress.com/v/CRyHkuAw

[arunsathiya]

+1! This happens to me as well. I do not have a video at the moment, but has happened with various installs:

• Locally
• WordPress install on Pressable
• On WordPress.com

Noticed on Google Chrome Version 74.0.3729.131 (Official Build) (64-bit) with macOS 10.14.4 - Mac OS Mojave.

[adnan-cefalo]

Here are my findings:

1. When a tag is searched, the search is paginated. Each time you type something, it queries for first 100 tags that would match. Ones the result is received in JS, a request is sent for page 2 and so on untill there are no pages. So, if you have few thousand tags, it can send out 30-40 requests.
2. The autocomplete is throttled instead of denounced. So the first character you type, sends one bunch of requests and after you complete typing it sends another bunch.
3. If you clear what you typed, it even searches for empty string sending N number of requests. N = (number of tags)/100.

The issue of tags disappearing happens because: Each new tag you insert is posted for insertion on the database. If it already exists, an error is returned and the tag is than looked up by another query. If there are too many pending queries in queue(bandwidth limitation), these two queries can stay in the queue for a while until the previous autocomplete queries finish.
That many requests for 20 autocomplete suggestions seem unreasonable.

[zionthelion73]

Hallo,
A part for the Quick Edit option which was already mentioned above I noticed than it works just fine if the TAG was already inserted in the POST-TAG page from scratch.
Apparently when you edit a NEW TAG in the post itself it saves the NEW TAG in some sort of cache but it DOES NOTupdate the TAG DB list.
So if you even try to recover the previous NEW TAG typing it from the “Add New Tag” field and you can find it but even if you select with keyboard or mouse It will not be saved. It seems that is recovered from some temporary cache. Use save option to verify it (CTRL-S).
The only way is to create it from scratch from the POST-TAG page and then recall it from the “Add New Tag” field.
I think this solution is quicker then the Quick Edit solution even is not a on-the-fly method to create and save a TAG within a post.

WP Version 5.2.3

[phillipjohnston]

Playing whack-a-mole with disappearing tags when editing posts is maddening. This happens to me with 2017 theme.

[eperezf]

This issue is still ongoing on WordPress 5.3.2 and it has been since the addition of the new Gutenberg editor.

[ardelmedia]

Confirmation that this issue is is still occurring, and is a real issue for users. Is anything being done to address the issue in an upcoming release? It happens with all themes, including default WordPress themes, and all plugins deactivated.

[phillipjohnston]

I migrated my website to a new host, resulting in a lower loading time for the website. This seems to have addressed the issue. The two websites that remain on my previous host still exhibit the tags-disappearing issue.

[annezazu]

Changing the labels here to get a bit more attention. Here's a GIF of me replicating using WordPress 5.5.1 and Gutenberg 9.0 on a very low volume, high performance site:

UPDATE: deleted autoresponder comments to keep this issue clean and up to date.

[zackabrams]

Hello, just chiming in to say I'm also having this issue on our site because we have a huge number of tags. Any help would be appreciated.

[supernovia]

Noting I've seen this issue as well and another user seems to be complaining about it here:
https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/how-do-i-set-classic-editor-to-the-default/

Here's what I'm seeing on a test site on WordPress.com. If I'm adding new tags, the tag appears, disappears, and then reappears. I'm using commas to separate and am not using the the mouse.

[darwin370]

This is obviously still a problem in the wild, a recent example here in (german) wordpress.org support area:

https://de.wordpress.org/support/topic/alle-gespeicherten-tags-verschwunden/

[paaljoachim]

Test out this new Tags PR #30598 by @Mamaduka

It should likely fix the bug reported in this issue.

[shelbypereira]

this is still happening on the latest 5.9.3, I see the issue is labeled open but the latest changes show "merged". Is this fix already in a released version of WP?

[efu98]

Hello, I am still experiencing this issue on version 5.9.3. Sometimes, the tag disappears after I type it.

[skorasaurus]

this is still happening on the latest 5.9.3, I see the issue is labeled open but the latest changes show "merged". Is this fix already in a released version of WP?

@shelbypereira , the fix that you mentioned - #30598 has been included in released versions of WP for sometime now (my guess is 5.8) but that did not fix the issue; so I'm keeping this as open.

[shelbypereira]

Does anyone know if there is a workaround to disable the autocomplete suggestions which might be triggering this issue?

I have tried both :
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70895629/disable-autosuggestion-tags-in-admin-area-wordpress
https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/137/can-i-disable-the-auto-complete

The autocomplete tags still appear and other tags disappear as I add them.

NOTE: I am seeing this on sites where I have lots of tags 1000+ . If the total number of tags is small <100 things seem to work.

[alekstrust]

I'm on Wordpress 6.1.1 and this issue is still present.

[hbk747]

Hello. Has anyone found the solution? I am using WP 6.2 and the issue is still present.

[shelbypereira]

the issue definitely still occurs in 6.2, not sure if this helps, but I believe it may be happening when there are a large number of tags (I have thousands). Not sure that the issue is reproducible if there are only a few tags, it seems to be linked to the autocomplete behaviour. very annoying bug because the only work around seems to be to go the Posts and use the quick edit function to add the tag. Not very practical... although not blocking, would be nice to update the priority on this, because for large sites it is really not user friendly.

[hbk747]

@shelbypereira Thank you for your response. I have many tags as well so you could be correct. To reproduce the issue, I created a staging website and deactivated all plugins. I did not notice the problem until I activated Yoast. I have asked my team to confirm this. Maybe food for thought for everyone. I wonder if it is connected to Yoast somehow. I will confirm if this is correct.

[shelbypereira]

@hb747 I confirm I also have Yoast.

[Mamaduka]

Thank you for the additional details, @hbk747 and @shelbypereira!

I started testing locally with many tags and Yoast SEO active. I started with 1k and then with 5k; unfortunately, I am still unable to reproduce the issue to debug performance bottlenecks.

Can any of you share a screencast recording of the bug?

[shev72]

I was experiencing this issue and I think I have found the reason. I had the Gutenberg plugin installed and it is no longer needed. After I uninstalled it I no longer can reproduce the issue. it seems the plugin may have been "competing" with WP to process the tags.

[youknowriad]

I'm adding the "needs more info" label because it seems there's still no clear instructions on how to reproduce this on a raw Gutenberg install per @Mamaduka's testing.

[shelbypereira]

@youknowriad I think you can close it, I have now seen on two websites that removing the Gutenberg plugin (already present by default in recent versions of WP ) solves the issue. So I think it iwll never be reproducible on a normal install.

[youknowriad]

If that's the case, it would be good to solve it on the Gutenberg Plugin too. There's a number of people using it.

[shelbypereira]

@youknowriad I think the issue is more that Gutenberg plugin is competing with WP because WP has Gutenberg bilt in, on the other hand I don't know what the Gutenberg plugin adds when installed on top of WP. so yes if there may be a need to move the issue to Gutenberg.

[gvenk]

I also ran into this problem on a client's website. This website has 5000+ tags. It was solved after I added extra indexes

[jdevalk]

I think we should stop urging people to "add some tags" before they publish, so we don't make this a more common problem :) Most sites really aren't helped by that advice.

[Mamaduka]

Closing the issue. The conflicts with Yoast SEO have been resolved upstream. See: #43464 (comment).

If you're still experiencing the bug, please create a new issue with reproduction steps.