[Resolved] Updating failed. The response is not a valid JSON response.

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[joelW-3]

I am creating an Archive with Toolset. Everything was working fine, and the page still displays fine on the front-end, but for some reason, the Archive loop section no longer displays anything while editing it. And I am getting the message "Updating failed. The response is not a valid JSON response." I have disabled all other plugins and switched back to the twenty-twenty theme, but the problem is still present. I also rolled my site back to a backup from yesterday, when the problem wasn't occurring and I am still getting the message. The archive I am trying to work on is Course Categories. My site is hidden link Thank you for your assistance!

[Nigel]

Can you check your PHP logs for errors? It sounds like the page is communicating with the server and not getting back the response it expects (a JSON object).

If you haven't already, turn on the debug log by editing your wp-config.php file and change the line with WP_DEBUG like so:

define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);
define('WP_DISABLE_FATAL_ERROR_HANDLER',true);

That will create a debug.log file in your /wp-content/ directory which you can examine in any text editor. Try editing the archive again and then inspect the log.

[joelW-3]

Hi Nigel, thanks for your response. I turned on debugging and looked at the log. It is showing a bunch of PHP notices about another plugin I use from Caspio. I disabled that plugin, and the log stopped showing messages, however the original problem still remains. If I make a change to the archive page, the Update button never becomes enabled and I get an error message saying "Updating failed. The response is not a valid JSON response." This is really confusing because one minute it was working fine and the next it started doing this. I hadn't done anything to the site (update plugins, etc.) when this happened. Any ideas are appreciated.

[joelW-3]

Sorry - forgot to copy in the details of the log. It just displays this message over and over (until I disabled the plugin):
[13-Nov-2020 15:19:57 UTC] PHP Notice: Undefined variable: _SESSION in /home/dh_q6tmup/test.skillforge.com/wp-content/plugins/custom-database-applications-by-caspio/classes/class-datapage-loader.php on line 4

[Jamal]

To better assist you with this issue, I'll need to take a copy of your website and analyze it locally. We prefer Duplicator copies as described in this article https://toolset.com/faq/provide-supporters-copy-site/
Please use filter to reduce the size of the copy as described in this video around 1:00 hidden link
If Duplicator fails to create a copy, we'll need a database copy/export, plugins, and theme folders, all in a zip file.
Your next reply will be private to let you share the download link safely.

Please create an admin user for use before taking the update and share its credentials in your next message. You can delete it after creating the Duplicator copy.

[joelW-3]

I get a 500 Internal Server error when trying to create the package, unfortunately. I tried to check the error log on my site, but wasn't able to see anything that looked like it was related to Duplicator.

[Jamal]

It may be caused by the max_execution_time limit on your server.
Let's try the All In One Migration plugin if Duplicator continues failing. https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-migration/
Please use filters to exclude the media folder. Your next reply will be private to let you share the download link safely.

[joelW-3]

Hi Jamal - I'm not sure if this is what did it or not, but having had glitchy problems like this before, I suspected my disk space may have been too low so I deleted a bunch of unnecessary files. I then tried restoring a backup of the site from prior to the problem occurring (which I had tried before but it still didn't fix the problem) but this time it worked and everything now seems fine. Thanks again for your help.