PHP warning caused by missing 'spam' and 'deleted' fields in a custom user table

[leondari]

In my network dashboard I get the following error message :

Warning: number_format() expects parameter 1 to be double, string given in /home/tklighth/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 155

[scribu]

Install this in your mu-plugins folder to get more information about the error:

​https://raw.github.com/gist/625769/e26b3eb9b5ccaeeda75dc266fdbd6f8e36da51f5/backtrace-errors.php

[SergeyBiryukov]

Related: #17299, #19590

[kobenland]

I have the same warning in my 3.3.2 (and prior) install, but I can't seem to reproduce it in 3.4-RC2.

The number of users are stored in a site option, which is fed by a query returning a string:

//in wp-includes/ms-functions.php line 1980
$count = $wpdb->get_var( $wpdb->prepare("SELECT COUNT(ID) as c FROM $wpdb->users WHERE spam = '0' AND deleted = '0'") );
update_site_option( 'user_count', $count );

[kobenland]

Wraps $count in absint()

[SergeyBiryukov]

I can reproduce in 3.4.1 with a custom user table which doesn't contain spam and deleted fields.
wp_update_network_counts() then fails to update user_count site meta value:

SELECT COUNT(ID) as c FROM wp_users WHERE spam = '0' AND deleted = '0'
Unknown column 'spam' in 'where clause'

user_count ends up being an empty string, which leads to the notice.

[jeremyfelt]

20854.2.diff​ is a refresh against trunk. Wraps blog and user counts in absint() before setting the options.

[nacin]

I'm not sure what this does. When the option comes back out of the table, it'll again be a string.

If the issue is to paper over an issue where a custom user table is missing the spam and deleted fields, that sounds like a much larger issue, and we shouldn't be papering over it with an int cast in this one situation.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to nacin:

If the issue is to paper over an issue where a custom user table is missing the spam and deleted fields, that sounds like a much larger issue, and we shouldn't be papering over it with an int cast in this one situation.

Indeed.

[nacin]

I don't think this means it is a wontfix right away — we should audit core to see what happens when these fields are missing.

[SergeyBiryukov]

#27972 was marked as a duplicate.

[desrosj]

Did some investigating on this today. Here are the steps I took:

• Create a new database table using CREATE TABLE custom_user_table2 AS SELECT * FROM wp_users
• Run ALTER TABLE custom_user_table DROP COLUMN deleted, DROP COLUMN spam
• Define the CUSTOM_USER_TABLE constant to a value of custom_user_table.

After taking these steps, I navigated around the Network admin and site admin screens, but I was unable to trigger the error described above.

However, I was able to find a few issues:

• If you head to the Network > Add New screen, you will be unable to create new users (the Cannot add user. error is displayed). Though, this is could be the preferred behavior to alert an admin of an issue, the message could be more informative.
• If you head to a single site admin Users > Add New, enter a new user, check "Add the user without sending an email that requires their confirmation", click Add New User, the screen shows "User has been added to your site". This is not the case, no user is added to the database.
• Follow the same steps as the previous item but don't click the confirmation checkbox. The user is correctly added to the wp_signups table and sent an email. When the activation link is clicked in the email, "An error occurred during the activation" heading is displayed with "Could not create user".

It seems that there are currently no PHP notices or warnings displayed, but there are probably some more less than desirable outcomes somewhere in the code base. I think only the second one really needs to be fixed. An administrator should not be displayed a success notice when the user is not actually added.