package playne

imports "programmer"

wpsc_update_custom_meta() nukes my custom post meta data

So today I was rather perplexed as to why my custom meta box on my post edit page was not playing ball. It would be set to a value and always stay at it, delete it from the database and give it a different value – and it would keep that too.St

Since I had used the update_post_meta() function before and it had never behaved this way, I looked through the mysql.log file on my server and saw this

4162 Query SELECT meta_id FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = 'my-plugin-key' AND post_id = 128
4162 Query UPDATE `wp_postmeta` SET `meta_value` = '0' WHERE `post_id` = 128 AND `meta_key` = 'my-plugin-key'
4162 Query SELECT meta_id FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = 'my-plugin-key' AND post_id = 128
4162 Query UPDATE `wp_postmeta` SET `meta_value` = '1' WHERE `post_id` = 128 AND `meta_key` = 'my-plugin-key'

What the? my value is set and then set back to what it was!? Time to find out where this was happening. Since I use Nusphere’s PhpEd to develop all my PHP projects, I fired up the trusty debugger and followed the code. Now take a guess where my setting is being undone!

Now I realise that I am playing in WP E-Commerce’s own playgound and that I need to play by their rules – but overwriting my changes – that’s just not cool!

The Fix

Go Last. Well, have wordpress call your save function after wp e-commerce. It’s rather simple actually – but a gotcha that cost me a couple of hours!

add_action( 'save_post', 'MyPluginHandleMetaBoxSaveData', 99);

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