Hi, Mee.

- Thanks for reaching out to us

- You are correct, that is the Google Sheets API Quota limit related;

 It's limited to 500 requests per 100 seconds per project, and 100 requests per 100 seconds per user.

https://developers.google.com/sheets/api/limits

That quota can be increased, but that requires an additional charge in Google (increasing the quota is not free); so, technically speaking, that could be one way to resolve it;

Another way, as you correctly suggested, can be to use the old method without the API. Our developers are working on this, and we'll try to come up with a better solution for one of our updates, without the need to pay Google for increasing the quota, but as this limitation is coming from Google, I don't have high hopes that it will be resolved any time soon.

- I will speak to the developers at Monday, just to check with them if there is any new information, this is the last info I had until recently.

Hi, Mee.

Developers additionally advised me this, you could try these steps ( if you haven't already):

1. If you're using the API method:

This error is returned by the function wp_remote_get which uses cURL in the background. The client's server doesn't have time to manage the data from Google's API in 5 seconds (which is the default setting in WordPress).

That limit can be increased using a hook https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/341357/wp-remote-get-curl-error-28-only-on-same-domain. Instead of "15" set it to "100", just in case.

If you get this error because of the WordPress hook extend_http_request_timeout, you need to remove it from your functions.php file and then checkout solutions for the first initial error for curl error 28 - Operation timed out ...

https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-curl-error-28-connection-timed-out-after-x-milliseconds/

2. If you're using the old method (without Google's API credentials) the timeout limit is set to 25 in file wp-content/plugins/wpdatatables/source/class.wdttools.php on line 198.

This can be overwritten with the hook wpdatatables_curl_get_data in the same file wp-content/plugins/wpdatatables/source/class.wdttools.php on line 208.

Hello, Mee.

To be honest, regarding linking the tables to Google Spreadsheets and the API method both, so far they are the same as before. Our developers are working on improvements, but we can't say exactly when they will be finished on that front, especially because the issues are coming from Google.

The main thing with the Google cache for the "old" method, is waiting up to 15 minutes for the table to pull the data, but yes, depending on how everything behaves from your end, this method might be better.

We will certainly do our best to assist and advise along the way.

Sorry that I am not more helpful on the matter at this time.

Hi, Mee

1. Well, our developers don't have a page where we could display the current tasks they are working on,

but we have this changeLog, that shows all the fixes/changes/ new features that happen during each update if that helps - https://wpdatatables.com/help/whats-new-changelog/

2.

Regarding the Ultimate member creating conflict with our plugin, I searched through our records and I can't seem to find any reports of this.

I will have to ask the level 2 escalations Team what would be best to do to isolate the conflict. They will be in the office on Monday, so I will escalate it to see, and I will get back to you as soon as they respond. Sorry about the waiting time.

Hi, Mee

Sorry for such a waiting time on this.

Regarding  the Ultimate member issue,

we don't have any reported conflicts with ultimate member, and it should work just like any membership plugin with which you can limit access to certain pages per user roles. 

So, if the page brings you back to the login screen, it's most likely related to the user role which is not allowed to access the page. For example, table #1 can be accessed only by administrators from the front-end, table #2 can only be accessed by Subscribers, and so on.