Number of comments in dashboard is not the same as that on articles

[pykko]

I'm using Wordpress 3.1 on a self hosted website.

On a particular post I compared the number of comments that appear in Dashboard (after clicking "show more comments" till the end) with the real number shown on that post.

To my stupefaction, the number shown in dashboard is smaller. I have 49 comments on my article, and dashboard on that article shows only 35.

I think this is a bug. Can you investigate and fix ?

[kapeels]

Can you post some screenshots? Would be more helpful.

[greuben]

Yes there is difference between number of comments shown in edit posts screen and number of actual comments.

[pykko]

So, is this going to be changed? It is definetely a bug.

[garyc40]

I'm sorry but I don't understand what Dashboard you're referring to here.

If it's the admin panel dashboard, clicking "View All" will take you to wp-admin/edit-comments. There's no "Show more comments" button there.

Are you referring to the Comment meta box inside Add / Edit Post page?

[garyc40]

After some investigation:

1. The comments displayed in Comment metabox when you create or edit a post do NOT include pingbacks, which explains why if you count the comments there and compare the total comments you find by clicking the comment bubble in wp-admin/edit-comments.php, the numbers won't match.

2. In wp-admin/edit-comments.php, the number displayed inside the bubbles is not the total number of comments, but the number of approved comments. This number is pulled from comment_count column inside wp_posts table.

3. The title attribute of the comment bubble says "xxx pending", so there could be some confusion for users who don't know exactly what the number inside the comment bubble represents.

4. Clicking the bubbles redirect you to a list of comments of the corresponding post. This list displays all comments, instead of just approved ones, so the total count in this list table is the total number of comments (both approved and pending, including pingbacks).

Now there's no bug here. But I think it would be nice if we could do something about point 2, 3 and 4. It's not made entirely clear that the number inside the bubble is that of approved comments.

Anyways, closing this ticket as worksforme. If the point above about the comment bubble is worth considering, another ticket should be opened.

[pykko]

@garyc40: There is a bug and perhaps I wasn't able to explain it properly.

I reffer to comments displayed in comment metabox when I edit a post. There is a "show more comments" button there. I am not reffering to pingbacks, but to user posted comments.

Specifically, I organized a contest and users were supposed to post comments to my article. Then I selected them using the comment metabox shown when I edit a post. Many comments were not show there. They were all approved and shown on the main page and article.

Can someone look into this?

[pykko]

I think I've found the issue myself as garyc40 unprofessional way of treating my ticket is... no comment.

It's all related to Settings > Discussions > Break comments into pages with X top level comments per page...
If you set here 40 comments, the comment metabox when editing a post, shows only 40 comments.
If you set 60, it will show only 60 and so on.

[garyc40]

Replying to pykko:

I think I've found the issue myself as garyc40 unprofessional way of treating my ticket is... no comment.

Don't understand what you mean by "unprofessional".

While I look further into this issue, you can use wp-admin/edit-comments.php?p={ID}. For example, if you want to view all comments on a post with ID 39, go to wp-admin/edit-comments?p=39. Hope this helps.

What plugins and theme are you using?

It would save us some time if you could confirm whether custom plugins are causing this problem by setting up a spanking new installation of WordPress, then import your posts and comments to that installation without installing any custom plugins and theme.

[garyc40]

Replying to pykko:

It's all related to Settings > Discussions > Break comments into pages with X top level comments per page...
If you set here 40 comments, the comment metabox when editing a post, shows only 40 comments.
If you set 60, it will show only 60 and so on.

I have it set to 10 comments in my installation. Comment meta box works as expected, though (if I keep clicking Show more comments, all of them show up, not only 10).

[garyc40]

By the way, greuben's patch does not address the issue described by the reporter.

[greuben]

@pykko See #15998, we have hard coded 10 in comments meta box in edit post screen.

@garyc40, the bug is only partial number of comments are shown in edit post screen but as you've said its not what the reporter addressed.

[MattyRob]

Fixed by [17168]

[ocean90]

Only the right status.

#15998