Error when I save Outline Page Settings

[ShapesSG]

Hi guys, I'm working on a website with Gantry 5.5.19 and Helium Theme and when I try to save the Outline Page Settings I get an error and I can't save the changes. Here is what the debug shows:

Wordpress: 6.8.2
PHP 8.1
The first time Wordpress told me that the error was related with the WPForms Lite plugin, so it was activated, but issue persist.

Error_log with WPForm activated:

Uncaught TypeError: strpos(): Argument #1 ($haystack) must be of type string, array given in /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/includes/functions/checks.php:199
Stack trace:
#0 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/includes/functions/checks.php(199): strpos()
#1 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/src/Loader.php(517): wpforms_is_admin_page()
#2 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/src/Loader.php(45): WPForms\Loader->populate_forms_overview()
#3 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/src/Loader.php(28): WPForms\Loader->populate_classes()
#4 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/src/WPForms.php(415): WPForms\Loader->init()
#5 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/src/WPForms.php(422): WPForms\WPForms->WPForms{closure}()
#6 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/src/WPForms.php(280): WPForms\WPForms->register()
#7 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/src/WPForms.php(206): WPForms\WPForms->includes_magic()
#8 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/src/WPForms.php(160): WPForms\WPForms->includes()
#9 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/src/WPForms.php(140): WPForms\WPForms->init()
#10 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/src/WPForms.php(594): WPForms\WPForms::instance()
#11 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/wpforms.php(250): wpforms()
#12 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-settings.php(545): include_once('/homepages/44/d...')
#13 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-config.php(92): require_once('/homepages/44/d...')
#14 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-load.php(50): require_once('/homepages/44/d...')
#15 /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-admin/admin.php(35): require_once('/homepages/44/d...')
#16 {main}
thrown in /home4/shapess1/public_html/test/coaching/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/includes/functions/checks.php on line 199

Error with WPForm deactivated.

Deprecated: File class-phpmailer.php is deprecated since version 5.5.0! Use wp-includes/PHPMailer/PHPMailer.php instead. The PHPMailer class has been moved to wp-includes/PHPMailer subdirectory and now uses the PHPMailer\PHPMailer namespace. in /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6121

Deprecated: Return type of Twig\Node\Node::count() should either be compatible with Countable::count(): int, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/gantry5/compat/vendor/twig/twig/src/Node/Node.php on line 213

Deprecated: Return type of Twig\Node\Node::getIterator() should either be compatible with IteratorAggregate::getIterator(): Traversable, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/gantry5/compat/vendor/twig/twig/src/Node/Node.php on line 221

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-includes/functions.php:6121) in /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-includes/functions.php on line 7168

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-includes/functions.php:6121) in /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-includes/functions.php on line 7144

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-includes/functions.php:6121) in /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-admin/admin-header.php on line 14

Is this solved in the new Gantry 5.5.2?

Thaks in advance.

Jorge.

[gteigland]

@ShapesSG thanks for all the details. We will take a look at this asap and get back to you.

[monikat12titans]

@ShapesSG I’ve tested Gantry 5.5.21 with the Helium 5.5.21 theme on WordPress 6.3.2.
I have investigated the issue where the Outline Page Settings in Gantry (Helium theme) are not saving properly. After reviewing the debug logs and plugin behavior, here's what i found:

The issue is being caused by a code error in the WPForms Lite plugin, not by Gantry or WordPress itself.

• When saving page settings in Gantry, a request is sent with a page parameter that, in some cases, becomes an array (e.g., page[]=layout-manager).
• However, WPForms assumes this page value is always a string, and it does not validate the type before processing it.
• As a result, PHP throws an error because WPForms tries to perform a string operation (strpos()) on an array.

[ShapesSG]

Thank you Monikat. According to that, deactivating the WPForms plugin (and clearing all cache) should solve the problem but it doesn't. The error message disapeared, no error log related with WPForms is found, BUT, I can't save the setting anyway. The same thing happen in 3 website I have with Gantry 5 rightnow:

[gteigland]

@ShapesSG We looked at this closely and cannot replicate the issue. Personally Ive done a lot of WP debugging on issues and often times I find it to be a different plugin that gives an error on another plugin. For debugging purposes I typically do this:

One thing I did notice is that you mentioned wordrpess but you are showing Joomla on the screenshot. (what version of joomla is this screenshot?)

For WP I would debug like this:

1. Disable plugins by alpha (or more than one alpha) that way it takes less time
2. Check if i can then save the outline
3. Once you identify the group of plugins - then i go one by one.
4. Let me know if you discover which plugin is causing the conflict.

[ShapesSG]

Thank you for reviewing this issue, yesterday I found someone here in Github with the same problem year an a half ago with no reply. So will do my best to give the most complete information about issue and eviroment. Here is the results so far of what I found making test with plugins:

Once again the platform is Wordpress 6.8.2 (some information will be visible in Spanish but you can see versions)
Theme: Helium 5.5.19

Some server information (tested in Bluehost and GoDaddy, in 3 staging websites and 3 production websites)

Error with WPForm activated (full log in the first post):
Uncaught TypeError: strpos(): Argument #1 ($haystack) must be of type string, array given in /homepages/44/d302427701/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/wpforms-lite/includes/functions/checks.php:199
.
.
.
Error with WPForm disabled

From here on I deactivated all plugins except Gantry 5 and yes, it saved correctly. so I started activating one by one until I found that the second error (the one without text warning or error log) was caused by the plugin Wordfence, when I disabled it, the outline page settings could be saved.

Unfortunately thereis no information in Wordfence about it or any log in the servers.

If I disable Wordfence and enable WPForm the error related to WPForm persist.

IMPORTANT:
The Wordfence plugin is the free version and the configuration is the standard. I just added my IP to the withelist to avoid any issues with false positives BECAUSE sometimes when I change something in the Helium Theme section (Layout, Assignments, etc), Wordpress block my IP and I have to inform that it's a false positive. As I said before I avoided this adding my IP to the Wordfence withelist but it not helped with saving error in the page setting.

That's all for now and hope this can help.

Cheers,