Gravity Forms Plugin Preventing Website from Loading

Hello Again,

This is my second post tonight, so please take a look above first...

Well, some great news here. After seeing the memory limit error I decided to investigate if that was the cause of the problems. I checked the memory limit setting in my php.ini file that governs scripts, and low and behold it was set to 32MB. The error that was showing indicated a need for more than 32MB.

So I went and increased the limit to 128MB, and that immediately solved the problems I was seeing. The page now loads properly, and as far as I can tell all of those problems were caused by the lack of memory. I should have figured it was something fundamental to affect so many things.

I had read online that the WordPress core prefers a 32MB memory limit, but that doesn't take into account lots of plugins. I think adding Gravity Forms kind of pushed our site over the edge. It simply needed more memory.

At this point I'd like to now ask you to take a look at the test site again, and see if the plugin is running properly. I have left the debug mode turned on for you. There still may be some additional problems to take care of... things that only you would notice.

Looks like this may workout afterall...

~ Michael

Hello Chris,

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you today... had a late start. I can't thank you enough for looking everything over for me. Your insights have been on target each time.

I was actually surprised to see the memory limit set so low. We don't have that many advanced plugins on the site, but are starting to gain more now that we have added Gravity Forms. Like I said earlier, it must have been that final straw.

I looked at the piece of code you took the screenshot of, and saw the extraneous markup. That is frustrating to know that something else on the site is modifying shortcodes completely unlreated to it.

I hadn't noticed it until I tried your suggestion with the [raw] shortcodes, but there was indeed extra space both above and below the form. That space was caused by the extra markup. You probably saw that.

As you suggested, I wrapped the form shortcode with the [raw] shortcode. After doing this those extra spaces above/below the form did dissapear. I then viewed the source code, and saw much of that extra markup was gone.

All of the
tags at the ends of each line are gone, as are the 3 </p> tags you pointed out. However, this one line still has the </span> and </div> in it...

<label for='input_1_1_6' id='input_1_1_6_label'>Country</label></span></div>

I actually didn't know about the [raw] shortcode until now. Is this a shortcode built into all themes by default? Just curious if its default wordpress feature or not. It's going to be handy in the future...

Like you said, this is just a work-around solution. If you don't mind, please take a look at the page again and see if the [raw] code is helping enough... and what its missing.

I'd like to find out what plugin or code is modifying the shortcode markup in the first place, but cannot do this on my own. Do you know of a good way to pin-point the source of the problem? I'm open to any suggestions or help you can offer.

At this point I am going to push this to the live site, but want to continue correcting conflicts. I'll also start building the form, which may reveal any additional issues.

~ Michael

Hi Chris,

I must admit, you offer some of the best forum based customer service I've ever seen. Your responses are fast and detailed. My compliments to you!

Earlier today I read many of the other forum topics relating to this problem. You had sent me a link to them. I saw all the posts about ThemeForest and their use of the raw shortcode. What a headache those themes have caused your team.

Regarding the theme for DigitalRage... Well, we did actually start with a very basic theme when the site was first established. We have have been customizing and changing that theme ever since. At this point it barely resembles what we started with.

Obviously the original theme had the raw shortcode installed. The question is why? If I am understanding this correctly, it's the raw shortcode itself that is causing the problem. It sounds like you're saying that the raw shortcode actually adds the additional markup. Is this correct? When I read about the purpose of the raw shortcode, it said it removes automatic formatting made be WordPress. But now I am confussed. Are you saying the additional markup is in fact from the raw shortcode itself?

I can certainly look for the source of the shortcode and remove it. I'm quite good at locating code in the theme. I am a developer, just not so much back-end. I am more in between with my knowledge. But I can easily track down and remove that code.

But if the raw shortcode is there, how do I know its not being used in parts of the site? I really need to understand better what its purpose is before removing it. Please do clarify this for me.

You've been awesome, and I thank you for all the help and information. I'll keep you posted on our form implementation, and if anything else pops up. But for now I just want to get rid of this shortcode if it makes sense to.

~ Michael

Hello Chris,

Thanks for all the information...

That is interesting that the Raw shortcode applies a filter to the output of all other shortcodes. No wonder it can have such a negative impact. But what is the purpose of those filters? Obviously they serve some sort of function / advantage, otherwise they wouldn't be installed in the first place. I'm very curious to know this.

I decided to take your advice and hunt down the Raw shortcode. That took about 60 seconds, as it was in my "shortcodes.php" file, under the "functions" folder. In fact, it was practically the first code in that file.

I knew I could easily comment out the code, and see if it had an impact on the site. So this is exactly what I did. I commented out the entire function, and then checked the website thoroughly. As far as I can see, nothing was affected. All the pages are loading identically, the formatting all looks the same, and no functions seem affected. Perhaps this was not in use at all. I even checked in the dashboard for changes... not knowing if this could only affect the front-end of the site. I saw no problems at all.

After this I went and removed the raw shortcode from the Gravity Forms shortcode. Like you said, it was showing [raw] on the site since it was no longer being processed. After removing the raw code, the form looked perfect, and there was no additional markup as expected.

At this point I think all my problems originally reported are solved. I only have three remaining questions...

1.)
I noticed in the Raw shortcode I commented out that the "wpautop" filter was removed. Instead it was using a custom filter, "my_formatter". This was a little odd to me. I thought that perhaps this was actually being used. But like I said, after commenting this all out, there were no changes I could see on the site. So I thought I'd show you the code and see what you thought about it, and why it was there to begin with.

Here it is...

function my_formatter($content) {
    $new_content = '';
    $pattern_full = '{(\[raw\].*?\[/raw\])}is';
    $pattern_contents = '{\[raw\](.*?)\[/raw\]}is';
    $pieces = preg_split($pattern_full, $content, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);

    foreach ($pieces as $piece) {
        if (preg_match($pattern_contents, $piece, $matches)) {
            $new_content .= $matches[1];
            } else {
            $new_content .= wptexturize(wpautop($piece));
            }
        }
return $new_content;
}

remove_filter('the_content', 'wpautop');
remove_filter('the_content', 'wptexturize');
add_filter('the_content', 'my_formatter', 99);

2.)
This question is simple... Aside from this code you see above, is there any other code that also should be removed having to do with raw? I wasn't sure if there was another component somewhere, or if this was everything.

3.)
Lastly, I did activate Gravity Forms on the live site yesterday, and am working on it now. It's for our new Careers section which is not yet live. But I can show you it if you're curious. I am still working on the form, but so far there are no problems. The form submitted beautifully and I'm having no problems in the dashboard either.

Here is the link to the real implementation:
http://www.digitalrage.com/who-we-are/careers/business-consultant-sales/

You can see the form towards the bottom of this page.
I am trying right now to figure out how to move certain fields to the right column. The name and address fields very nicely split things up into two columns automatically. I need to do the same thing with some of the other columns at the bottom of the form. This probably requires some custom CSS. If you know the best way to accomplish this, please let me know.

Anyways, I know this was a lot to read, but I thank you for all your time and help. You really came through for me on this!

Thank you again for everything!

~ Michael