Today I released a hotfix release due to some errors that could occur when using customer reviews. The errors occured when requesting the customer reviews page from Amazon. Unfortunately the webservice doesn’t retrieve this information directly for some time now so I created this workaround for version 0.9.9.1.
Either the Amazon severs have some trouble or the plugin requests got locked out by Amazon. Whatever happened, I changed the way of requesting (put php curl as preffered way) and implemented some more error handling so that the problems should no longer bother you in the new version.
Keep in mind to backup your template files before updating as I experienced WordPress to delete my old directory completey before extracting the new version’s archive. This is kind of inconvenient as I solved this issue with the last update (0.9.9.2). But the hotfix is more important right now and I try to find a way for keeping the template files again in future.
And check if your cache directory is still writable.
Please let me know what you think about the new version and this plugin in general.
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Thx for the hotfix! Short question regarding templates: in the old version you could edit them in WP plugin backend… now I have to edit it via ftp …/amazonsimpleadmin/tpl/built-in/ as many do some localisation and customization it would be better to have the option to directly edit the templates in WordPress… But anyway great tool when it works 🙂
Hi Heiko,
I can’t remember that the templates could be edited in the plugin admin panel. Maybe you did this with another tool/plugin? Anyway, the build-in files should not be edited and kept in the build-in folder as those get overwritten by updates. Please save them in the tpl folder.
I am working on an online editing solution for future updates. I also had that idea in mind.
Hi, yes it worked via wp-admin/plugin-editor.php -> I guess because first the files where not in sub-folder – all files in the main folder are editable in wp backend –
Heiko
Thanks, works great!
Hi Timo
Did you find out more about what was going on? I have the strong suspection that the amazon servers really have changed something.
My site lookatstars.com takes now more than 20 seconds longer to load when I enable amazonsimpleadmin!
Do you have any idea what i could do to avoid the slowing down?
Mike
Hi Mike,
please check if your cache directory is still writable after the update. I noticed that the checkmark is still set in the settings panel after the update, but the directory has been created by WordPress and lost the permission to write. I have to fix this for the next update.
This could slow down your page…
Hi Timo It was indeed the cache setting – thank you for that valuable tip. While analysing the problem I might have found a further possibility for optimizing page load speed. Currently the pictures seem to be included from the amazon servers. The pictures come in the resolution amazon has them and are scaled via the width and height settings in the templates. If there was a way to make the wanted dimensions known to the plugin (e.g. if you want to change the template mechanism anyways and put them into the database…) then it would be possible to fetch… Read more »
Hi Michael,
I’m glad my tip worked. Your suggestion with the images is good, I will keep that in mind.
already upgrade. Work well
Thank you, Timo
Thank you for hotfix.
I`m downloaded.