Fatal error: "Class "MultipleAuthors\WP_Error" not found"

[claudiulodro]

Expected Behavior

Current Behavior

The Plugin class is namespaced under the MultipleAuthors namespace. When the cache is flushed, if there is an error finding a co-author, a new WP_Error is returned. Since the WP_Error is not namespaced, the site crashes with a fatal error:

[09-Jan-2025 18:50:49 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught Error: Class "MultipleAuthors\WP_Error" not found in /srv/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/publishpress-authors/src/core/Plugin.php:896
Stack trace:
#0 /wordpress/core/6.7.1/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(324): MultipleAuthors\Plugin->action_edited_term_taxonomy_flush_cache(475, 'author')
#1 /wordpress/core/6.7.1/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(348): WP_Hook->apply_filters('', Array)
#2 /wordpress/core/6.7.1/wp-includes/plugin.php(517): WP_Hook->do_action(Array)
#3 /wordpress/core/6.7.1/wp-includes/taxonomy.php(4180): do_action('edited_term_tax...', 475, 'author')
#4 /wordpress/core/6.7.1/wp-includes/taxonomy.php(3578): _update_post_term_count(Array, Object(WP_Taxonomy))
#5 /wordpress/core/6.7.1/wp-includes/taxonomy.php(3550): wp_update_term_count_now(Array, Object(WP_Taxonomy))
#6 /wordpress/core/6.7.1/wp-includes/post.php(8082): wp_update_term_count(Array, 'author')
...

Possible Solution

Simple fix! :) Change that line to return new \WP_Error(...

Steps to Reproduce (for bugs)

In theory you can reproduce it by calling:

$tt_id = 12345; // Some author term ID that doesn't exist.
$plugin->action_edited_term_taxonomy_flush_cache( $tt_id, 'author' );

If you're trying to reproduce it on a live site and not just in code, it looks like you need to add this filter to trigger the flush

Context

When removing multi-authors from posts, clients were reporting that the Save crashed with an "Updating failed" error and authors did not get removed.

Your Environment

• Version used: 4.7.3
• Browser Name and version: n/a
• Operating System and version (desktop or mobile): n/a
• Link to your project: n/a

[stevejburge]

Thanks for reporting this in detail, @claudiulodro. We'll take a close look