How can I fix a generic HTTP 5xx error?

In some cases, a web server may display an HTTP 5xx error page (500, 502, etc.) with a generic error message. This error message is generic on purpose - the actual details of the error can be found in the web server's error log. The most common cause of an HTTP 5xx error are from lack of available memory or time when PHP is executing - for example, when creating thumbnails from large images, creating many thumbnails, executing a badly coded recursive filter, etc. If you are seeing an HTTP 5xx error message, you must get the error details from the web server's error log to know what the issue actually is. Some older versions of PHP are known to have bugs in their ImageMagick library or PHP may have timed-out when trying to create several thumbnail images in a row (see this FAQ for details), or PHP may have run out of memory (see this FAQ for details), or WPSSO Core may be triggering a bug in your theme or another plugin (try disabling WPSSO Core's use of the WordPress content filter as suggested here). If an HTTP 5xx error happens in a WordPress edit table: WPSSO Core, by default, shows an SSO image column in the WordPress post, term and user edit table (see the SSO > Advanced Settings > Columns tab). If WordPress has not already created the various image sizes required by WPSSO Core (ie. Open Graph, Schema, AMP, etc.) during the image upload process, and you are displaying many rows by default (ie. 20+ items per page selected in the Screen Options tab), and your server is slow to create images (image optimization plugins, for example, are typically very slow), then your web server might time out with an HTTP 502 error in the WordPress edit table. If you think WordPress might be slow to create images: If you use an image optimization plugin, try disabling it or using a different (faster) image optimization plugin.You can also use the WPSSO Tune Image Editors add-on to select the GD image library instead of the default ImageMagick image library. The GD image library is lighter weight and faster than ImageMagick.

How do I enable WordPress WP_DEBUG?

Enabling the WordPress debug log (aka WP_DEBUG) can be very useful -- your theme and/or some badly coded plugins may be generating hundreds of PHP errors, and you would never know unless you enabled the WordPress debug log. To enable the WordPress debug log, without displaying the errors to your visitors, add the following to your wp-config.php file. Make sure you do not already have a define() for WP_DEBUG in your wp-config.php file (as constants can only be defined once). If you do, you can safely remove it and replace it with the following lines. You can easily turn on/off the WordPress debug log by changing WP_DEBUG's value from true to false. Any WordPress or PHP error messages will be saved in the wordpress/wp-content/debug.log file by default. If you have several badly coded and/or old plugins and themes that generate a lot of errors, then also make sure you clear the contents / rotate this file regularly, as it could grow large enough to fill a filesystem. In all cases, you should endeavour to resolve all warnings and errors in the debug.log file -- the debug.log file should remain empty -- always. The default location of the debug.log file can be changed by specifying a file path for the WP_DEBUG_LOG value.

How do I create a Schema FAQPage?

Please note that a WPSSO FAQ Manager add-on is available to manage FAQ categories and individual Question / Answer pages. The WPSSO FAQ add-on also provides FAQ and Question shortcodes that you can use in your content. If you prefer to manually create parent / child pages and custom FAQ taxonomies, see the following guidelines. A Schema FAQPage is a collection of Questions and Answers, and WordPress manages collections of related content in two different ways: A parent page with child pages.A taxonomy (categories, tags, or custom taxonomies) with posts / pages as members of that taxonomy. Parent Pages. When using a parent page, you can edit the parent page and select "webpage.faq | schema.org/FAQPage" in the Document SSO metabox. When editing the child pages, select "question | schema.org/Question" as the child page Schema type. Posts / pages will only be included in the parent FAQPage markup if they are of type Question, so make sure you have selected the correct Schema type for each child. You can view an example markup for a parent FAQ Page here. If you use custom post types, WPSSO automatically recognizes the "question" custom post type, assigning the correct Schema type automatically. Taxonomy Terms. You can select the default Schema type for each taxonomy (categories, tags, etc.) under the SSO > Advanced > Document Types > Schema Types tab. By default, all terms within a taxonomy are "item.list | schema.org/ItemList". If you use custom taxonomies, WPSSO automatically recognizes the "faq_category" and "faq_tag" custom taxonomies, assigning the correct Schema type automatically. When editing a term within a taxonomy (a category or tag, for example), you can also select "webpage.faq | schema.org/FAQPage" as the Schema type for that term in the Document SSO metabox. For example, if you have a category named "FAQ", then edit the "FAQ" term and select "webpage.faq | schema.org/FAQPage" as its Schema type in the Document SSO metabox. Posts / pages will only be included in the term FAQPage markup if they are of type Question, so make sure you have selected the correct Schema type for each post / page in that term. For example, any post / page in the "FAQ" category should be of type Question.

Custom Product Attributes in WPSSO for WooCommerce

January 25, 2019Updated on February 28, 2019 JS Morisset WooCommerce, WPSSO Core

WPSSO Core Pro and the WPSSO JSON Pro add-on provide complete Schema markup (aka Google’s Product Rich Card) for WooCommerce products, including all variations and extensive product information (size, weight, sale prices / dates, color, condition, etc.) – far beyond the basic Schema markup provided by the WooCommerce plugin itself. WPSSO Core Pro can also […]

WPBakery Bug in Change Handler

September 27, 2018Updated on February 17, 2020 JS Morisset jQuery, WPBakery

February 17th, 2020 Update – Although no specific entry was added in the WP Bakery changelog, it has been reported that this bug is now fixed in the current WPBakery version 6.1.0 release. The WPBakery (aka Visual Composer) changeHandler function uses the “vc.accordion” data attribute without first checking for it’s existence. Any plugin or theme […]

Social and SEO Plugins with Quality Assurance Features

July 27, 2018Updated on July 30, 2018 JS Morisset Open Graph, Plugins, Schema, SEO

Why your social and SEO plugin should check for minimum and maximum image resolution, aspect ratio, maximum image file size, and duplicate meta tags.

Redirect Attachment Pages for SEO? Read This First!

July 11, 2018Updated on July 11, 2018 JS Morisset 2 Comments SEO, WordPress

Last month Yoast added a feature to their Yoast SEO plugin to allow redirecting attachment pages to the media itself — here’s why you may not want to do that. ;-)

Inherit Featured and Custom Meta Images from Parents

July 10, 2018 JS Morisset WPSSO IPM

Have you defined a featured image for a parent and wished its children used the same featured image automatically?

Add Meta Tags and Schema JSON-LD to the REST API

July 6, 2018Updated on July 9, 2018 JS Morisset REST API, WPSSO REST

The WPSSO REST API (aka WPSSO REST) add-on includes a new head element in the WordPress REST API query result.

Add Schema Aggregate Ratings using WPSSO

June 25, 2018Updated on February 10, 2020 JS Morisset Schema, WPSSO Core, WPSSO JSON, WPSSO RAR

How do you add aggregate ratings in Schema markup AND includes all the other information about your content (images, videos, publisher, author, product details, etc.) as well?

[Solution] WordPress Creates Fuzzy Thumbnails

June 15, 2018Updated on October 1, 2019 JS Morisset WordPress, WPSSO TIE

Did you know that thumbnail / resized images MUST be sharpened? And did you know that WordPress does NOT do any sharpening when resizing images?