Hello Samuel.

We have no access to your data and, as far as we can see, both subscriptions you have are active on two domains:

some data has been blurred for security since this is a public ticket

The deactivation of the license is not being done from our end, but there's a possibility that there's a conflict with something else on your site (another plugin, for example, or a security measure) that deactivates the license. It can also happen on some domains if your hosting provider checks the wordpress.org repository (where the full version of our plugins is not hosted; only the lite version is hosted there).

Another reason why the licenses are being deactivated could be an expired SSL certificate, but I doubt that's the case.

Again, we are not deactivating your purchase code, and as you can see in the screenshot above, both licenses are registered as active on our end, and they have been active since October 9th, 2021, February 24th, and April 27th (check the "updated_at" column). If our server saw your licenses being truly deactivated, that column would be updated with each new activation.

This is not happening on over 90% of active installations, so the issue probably lies somewhere on your server, or in your WordPress installation.

We can debug the site and see if we can determine why the licenses are being deactivated, but for that, we'd need you to provide us with a temporary wp-admin (Administrator) user and make sure the Plugin Editor is enabled.

If you want us to do that, please make sure to send us credentials in a PRIVATE response, so they are not visible to other users.

I understand where you're coming from, Samuel, but without debugging the site, there's nothing concrete we can say about this behavior.

What Milos told you in another ticket, that our developers modified the verification process for the next update is true, but that won't be available until the next update is released.

You have absolutely nothing to worry about - the plugin isn't rendered useless even if the purchase code deactivates itself on daily basis. As you can see in our sandbox site, the purchase codes have not been activated there for wpDataTables or Powerful Filters, but all tables and charts work perfectly there:

The purchase code activation is there for automatic updates, nothing more. If you have the full version installed, all tables and charts will be working fine even if the purchase code is not active. Only if you created a manual, or a MySQL query-based table, and the plugin reverted to a Lite version would the tables and/or charts actually break. However, if this is happening, it's not caused by us. Also, if this is happening (if the plugin reverts to Lite), could you tell me which hosting provider you're using? We've only experienced this behavior on one hosting provider (hosting facil).

From your ticket, I didn't understand that this is happening, but only that the purchase code is being deactivated which is strange behavior, and not a common one. We hope the issue is permanently resolved with our next update, but until then (without debugging the site) there's nothing else we can do to prevent it, since it's not us (nor does the plugin have any functions) that are doing this.

Hi again Samuel.

Please allow me to quote you here:

I have another site, identical to the one with this bug, and everything is fine

This indicates that the issue is not coming from the plugin - if the issue was coming from wpDataTables this would have been happening on both sites, wouldn't you agree?

Also, as you mentioned here:

if I do leave it deactivated, ultimately, it will actually render some tables and charts blank on page

This is not possible with the full version of the plugin, as you were able to see on our sandbox site. I'm using wpDataTables locally and on live websites without the license being activated for the past 3.5 years. The plugin is not built in such a way that it renders the tables and charts useless when the license is deactivated.

If you're using the same hosting provider for both sites - you can ignore the following section:

Can I ask you to please check the Plugins section once this happens, and see if you have wpDataTables Lite or wpDataTables Full installed when the license deactivates? If you see v4.3 - that's the full version, and if you see v2.1.32 (or anything that has 3 number sections x.x.xx) - that's the lite version.

If this is happening, then it's a problem with the hosting provider's logic, and (as mentioned in the previous response), we've only faced this with one hosting provider.

Assuming that this doesn't happen on your site - would you be able to provide me with wp-admin (Administrator) credentials and make sure that the Plugin Editor is enabled so that I can take a look and see if I can debug the site and see what's behind this?

If you want us to debug it, please make sure to send me the credentials in a PRIVATE response, since this is a public ticket.

Hi again Samuel.

What you're experiencing is extremely rare. With tens of thousands of active installations, this happens only on a few websites. Unfortunately, we are not able to fix an issue we're unable to replicate and we are not able to replicate this behavior locally or on any of our live servers.

We would love to help you out here, but in order to do that, our plugin needs to be debugged on a site where this is happening. If you'd be so kind as to provide us with temporary access credentials, I'm sure our developers will be able to figure out what's causing the issue fast. You'd basically be helping us out resolve this issue once and for all.

As mentioned before, the update that's going to alter the verification process should fix it, but without testing this on an actual site, we can't say if there's more to this.

Looking forward to your response.

Samuel,

Since you have two domains and only one is experiencing this issue, can you tell me what that domain is?

We'll then manually deactivate the license and send you a file we believe would fix the issue. We would've gladly done this for you, but since you don't want to share your credentials with us, we'll have to do it this way.

Please note that we will need to deactivate your license manually in order for you to apply the fix. This is why we're going to send you the file after your next response where you'll indicate which domain is affected.

Let's try and resolve this today.

Actually, Samuel, our developers just built the current version of wpDataTables (v4.3) with that fix included, so there's no need to replace any files but simply perform a manual update and install the plugin that I'll send in my next (private) response.

When you download the file from my next response, go to wpDataTables settings/Activation and make sure you activated both licenses. Then access the main wpDataTables Settings screen, and make sure that the "Prevent deleting tables in database" check box is enabled.

After that, access your Plugins section and deactivate the plugin. If you're using WordPress 5.8+, you'll be able to go to the Plugins section/Add New, and upload the file you previously downloaded.

When you upload the file, WordPress will inform you that you're replacing the plugin with the same version, which is ok since you're replacing 4.3 with the new license activation method our developers made in hope that this will fix the issue. After the plugin is installed, activate it, and make sure to purge all cache from your website.

Let me know if this continues to happen after you perform this.

Fingers crossed, Samuel.

Do let me know in a few days just to be sure that we're on a good track to resolve this once and for all.

Great news, Samuel, thanks for letting us know!