[chris grasso]

on the page where the shortcode is displayed, I am getting:

Fatal error: ob_start(): Cannot use output buffering in output buffering display handlers in /home/(redacted)/public_html/wp-content/plugins/connections/includes/shortcode/class.shortcode-connections.php on line 171

The only shortcode I have added on the page is:

[connections id=11]

I did just update the plugin to v8.6.8. I noticed the issue after the update, so to be honest I’m not sure if it was like that before or not.

Thanks Steve!

[Steven Zahm]

@ chris

My first suggestion is to run thru the theme and plugin conflict checks:

• How do I check for a theme conflict?
• How do I check for a plugin conflict?

Let me know what you learn.

[chris grasso]

Hi Steve,

you are right, it is a plugin conflict. The other plugin that is conflicting is:
NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster

As soon as this plugin is disabled, the Connections shortcode works again. The client does use this plugin to autopost to their social media feeds. Could you check on your end if its repeatable in a test setting with their plugin?

Thanks
Chris

[Steven Zahm]

@ chris

Yes, I was able to duplicate, but only after enabling the “Use advanced image finder” option in NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster on the admin settings page under their Settings tab.

With the “Use advanced image finder” option enabled, if I select the “Do not add Open Graph Tags” option in the in the “Open Graph” Tags section of the settings the pages load fine. So, there is something going on with those two settings.

The way the Open Graph tags are coded to be added to the page puzzles me. It seems they cache the entire page to simply output a few meta tags in the page head. I’m sure they must have a reason but I think it is this that is causing the trouble because I think PHP is getting confused or something with the multiple output buffers being open and cached which is resulting in this error. Another item I find very odd is that this is coded to happen based on if a select bot or browser visits the page. For example, the page will load fine when using IE 11 or Firefox but not Chrome or Edge.

At this point, I’m do not think Connections is the source of the conflict. I’m leaning towards their implementation of output buffering the entire page content as the source. It certainly could be a bug in Connections, but I just do not see how at the moment. I would suggest pointing this out to their support of you are a Pro user of their plugin.

Hope this helps!

[chris grasso]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the reply and the testing of this for me. You are right, when I disabled the open graph tags, both plugins could run side by side. I have never installed a 3rd plugin that would fix a conflict issue, but in this case, I did after reading your reply. There is a really good open graph tag plugin called OG, really light with no options. I had issues with Nextscripts on a different site not being able to correctly push a post image to Facebook, so I installed this OG plugin to handle the open graph tags on that page, and it immediately solved the issue. I installed it on this site too, and went back to the Nextscripts Open graph settings, and this message was there:
“OG (Very tiny Open Graph plugin) plugin has been detected It has support for OG Metatags. Please disable SNAP OG Tags to avoid conflicts” with the said option already deselected. This resolved the issue, Nextscripts now works with the tags from OG, and Connections shortcode is working again.

Thanks Steve! your support is top notch.

[Steven Zahm]

@ chris

Great to hear! Your experiences might seem to indicate they need to work on their implementation for OG tags.

[Author]

Posts