Topic: Big Akismet Problems

Big Akismet Problems

aaclayton
Participant

@aaclayton

4 months ago

On my site I have fairly strict user registration requirements, and therefore I have the BuddyPress setting Allow Akismet to scan for activity stream spam set to DISABLED (unchecked).

While poking around my database today I noticed something really disturbing. Despite Akismet (allegedly) being disabled, activity_meta entries are being created and processed for every activity item that is registered. To make things worse, Akismet is even flagging certain activity items as spam with a 100% false positive rate!!!!!

I need Akismet to be OFF for BuddyPress, not dormant, not asleep, just off. I don’t want it making activity_meta entries, and I certainly don’t want it attempting to flag anything as spam. Anyone have an idea for how best to proceed?

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

@modemlooper
Moderator

@modemlooper

4 months ago

@djpaul

What version are you running?

aaclayton
Participant

@aaclayton

4 months ago

Sorry, should have specified. This is on 1.6.3.

Paul Gibbs
Keymaster

@djpaul

4 months ago

Er. Woops!

aaclayton
Participant

@aaclayton

4 months ago

Thanks for looking into this so quickly @djpaul. Appreciate your hard work

Would you presume I can safely delete the 25,000+ akismet activity meta entries which are in my bp_activity_meta table without it causing any adverse effects?

Paul Gibbs
Keymaster

@djpaul

4 months ago

Sure. Those are meant to be cleared out periodically anyway, so go for it.

rossagrant
Participant

@rossagrant

4 months ago

Could this be something to do with the wp-cron job Paul that I’m seeing not firing for akismet and BP?

Only problem now is after deleting the bloody cron job, I can’t re-queue it.

I don’t want to hijack this thread by the way, if it’s a separate issue, tell me to sod off!

rossagrant
Participant

@rossagrant

4 months ago

Just to clarify, it looks like the cron isn’t firing – just checked my bp_activity_meta table and there are hundreds of entries from much longer than a day or two ago.

It’s still listed on another one of my sites but it is again labelled as X No action exists.

If you need anyone to test anything, just shout up!

Paul Gibbs
Keymaster

@djpaul

4 months ago

Ross, this is a different part of the code.

rossagrant
Participant

@rossagrant

4 months ago

Cool, no worries Paul!

I guess Clayton’s 25,000 entries would have been cleared if the cron job was running on his install though?

Rather than me mucking p this thread though, we can discuss it here:
http://buddypress.org/support/topic/bp_activity_akismet_delete_old_metadata-what-does-this-do/

Any ideas on how to re initiate that cron job wold be very much welcomed!

Cheers mate

rossagrant
Participant

@rossagrant

3 months, 4 weeks ago

@aaclayton To find out why those entries weren’t being deleted by wp-cron on a daily basis, if you install the lightweight plugin wp-cron dashboard, you will be able to see the cron jobs in the dashboard.

Check if you have the cron job bp_activity_akismet_delete_old_metadata listed.

See if the plugin has a tick next to it or a cross saying ‘no action exists’. This is what I am seeing at the moment, and I’m not sure if it’s BP or something else at fault.

Regardless that those queries were being created even when you had them turned off, they still should have been cleared out daily by that cron job.

Let me know what you see.

Cheers