Appearance>Menus Disappear (actual menu items) When Updating to WP 6+

[truebird]

Hi folks,

This has been an ongoing issue for many months. It only affects select single sites or select subsites on a multisite for unknown reasons even after using the default WP theme and disabling all plugins.

See page 2 here ​https://wordpress.org/support/topic/appearancemenus-disappear-when-updating/page/2/#post-16399937 for the most recent info but also look at the beginning too on page 1.

On a staging site for multisite I just recently did this to continue testing:

Current is 5.9.5 and everything is fine. Shows what menus are prior to updating to WordPress 6 plus:
​https://app.screencast.com/IeeYd9srBeKVl (this is on a full network staging site to test)

Keep in mind this issue can be on single WP installs or multisite installs. See the WordPress forum post

It can not be replicable because it seems to only affect certain websites for unknown reasons even after putting sites on the default WP theme and deactivating all plugins (on both single sites WP installs and multisite).

After updating:
I was showing some subsites are fine but about 6 or 7 of my 70 subsites have menus that disappear ​https://app.screencast.com/OXcdWgR4D3jE1 initially on updating WordPress 6 plus. I have found other people with single WP site installs that have the same problem like the WordPress forum post here for example.
See:
​https://app.screencast.com/OXcdWgR4D3jE1

See how I resolved on staging:
​https://app.screencast.com/X60RG8l61sVsG (keep in mind when I tried this a couple months ago on my live network, the menus came back initially, but then they disappeared after a day or so again...I had to revert back to WP 5.9.5 to get the menus to stay on those 7 sites).

For this testing site, so far, on staging, I disabled a couple of menu-related plugins before updating and then fixed the menus and reenabled (like Max Menu just as a hunch), but there is also a newer version of WP now too so that is different too.

I then made a backup of the menus using the Duplicate Menu plugin on each of the 7 sites for all menus just in case they disappeared after a few days I would try the backup menus made with the new version of WP. I have not had to use them yet. It has been a week on staging and menus are still so far there.

I tried this before on another staging a few months ago, and the menus stayed on staging but continued to disappear when trying on the live site after af few hours in my case or day or so.

Excerpt from page 2 recently talking to another person who has a single WP site doing the same thing:

"
#1 I disabled Max Menu plugin first only cause I suspect (guessing since it is a menu based plugin) that may be part of this. You could disable only any menu related plugins or all plugins. But if you menus are driven by your theme just try also changing your theme before updating WP core too.

#2 I updated to the latest WP core.

#3 Menus items are gone but…

#4 I go to the Menus titles that I had active and added a new random page to the menus that should have menu items but shows none at that moment. I then SAVE the menus. All menu items that were gone then reappear. Don’t just try to resale without adding a new random page to the menu. You have to add a new page first for it to work. You can remove it after all your menu items come back and resale again afterwards.

#5 Optional…I then used the top plugin in WP repository to duplicate the menus as a quick backup (it has about 80k active installs). Search duplicate menu in WP repository.

#6 Then enable all plugins I had disabled (or enable your theme too if you changed that).

#7 All menus are now restored with the latest WP.

#8 I have left the staging going for about a week to monitor to be sure the menus stayed up. So far so good. I made duplicate backups of the menus while on the new version of WP just in case the originals disappeared again (i.e. #5 above). So far the original menus have not disappeared.
"

It would probably be best for you to get a staging site on a single WP site that is doing it vs an entire multisite staging to see the replication of the issue.

I am asking the other person ( @marpan ) to post here to and provide you access to a fresh single WP site staging site so you can see it for yourself too as this only seems to happen on a smaller percentage of single sites. For my multisite, I have 70 subsites and only 6 or so are doing this too FYI. The other subsites seem fine.

[Marpan]

Hello,

I have same issue as @truebird

Single site install (I have other sites (2) not in a network that have same issues)

Disabled all plugins except Woocommerce, maintenance mode and Flatsome theme as when I do that Appearance/menus disappeared. Tried with disabling everything still issues persist.

Created a staging website, Debug is ON, can give access to the website to try to replicate issues.
If needed can give access to FTP to do a manual downgrade to 5.9.5. after updating to new WP core version to test. Contact me.

Before, after updating, I also had the issue that when I add one item to the menu and save, others appear, but disappear after some time.

I don't have any menu plugins installed, tried disabling all the plugins and themes, then manual update WP core and still menus are missing until I revert to 5.9.5

I also couldn’t figure why the menus were deleting again, tried running every cron job manually to try to trigger the delete, but nothing worked.

Flatsome theme (premium) support responded to my request if this has anything to do with their theme:
"We have seen a few other customers with the same issue. Would you please roll back the WP Core and see if the issue is resolved?"
After rolling to 5.9.5 all issues are resolved and menus appear.

[truebird]

Can someone have a look at this and please comment/give some input?