fix: expire stale Instant Sharing queue entries instead of flooding accounts

[lucadobrescu]

Summary

On a site whose cron stalled, Instant Sharing entries piled up for months and flooded every connected account when cron recovered (#1102). Queue entries older than a filterable cutoff (default one day) now expire instead of sharing.

• Queue drain — build_queue_publish_now() marks an entry older than the rop_publish_now_expiration cutoff as expired and logs it. An entry without history predates the tracking meta and counts as stale.

• Batch size — WP_Query ignores numberposts, so the real batch fell back to the posts_per_page site option (about 10). The query now passes posts_per_page, filterable through rop_publish_now_batch_size (default 300).

• Drain rescheduling — a pass that consumes a full batch schedules another pass. A fresh post behind a large backlog no longer waits for an unrelated share event.

• Save hook — wp_after_insert_post now routes through maybe_publish_now_after_insert(). An edit of an already-published post queues a share only on an explicit Classic Editor metabox submit. A save while a request is queued changes nothing, so a stalled entry cannot reset its expiry clock.

• Metabox default — on an already-published post, the share checkbox is pre-checked only while a share is still pending. Before, Enable Instant Sharing By Default pre-checked it on every archive post, which is how the backlog grew for the reporting customer.

• Orphaned entries — an entry with no accounts left retires through the same expiration path. Its queued history rows are cleared, so the editor stops polling "Posting to social media…".

Note

The deliberate re-share paths do not change: the Block Editor re-share button (REST share endpoint → maybe_publish_now( $id, true )) and a scheduled post going live (transition_post_status()). The recurring-queue fixes in #1101 / #1103 touch rop_cron_job and build_query_args; the two changes do not overlap in code.

Instant Sharing drain flow

flowchart LR
    T["Share or publish event"] --> B["Changed: fetch up to 300<br/>queued entries"]:::changed
    B --> A{"Accounts<br/>left?"}
    A -- "No" --> X["New: mark expired,<br/>clear queue meta"]:::added
    A -- "Yes" --> O{"New: queued over<br/>one day ago?"}:::added
    O -- "Yes" --> X
    O -- "No" --> S["Share to accounts"]
    S --> F{"New: full batch<br/>consumed?"}:::added
    F -- "Yes" --> R["New: schedule<br/>another pass"]:::added
    F -- "No" --> D["Drain done"]

    classDef added fill:#1a7f37,color:#fff,stroke:#116329,stroke-width:3px
    classDef changed fill:#9a6700,color:#fff,stroke:#5c3d00,stroke-width:3px,stroke-dasharray:6 3

Loading

Stored meta on expiry

Before, a stale entry kept rop_publish_now_status = queued forever. After, expiry clears the queue meta and the history row shows expired.

Meta key	Change on expiry	Lifetime
rop_publish_now_status	deleted	per post, until shared or expired
rop_publish_now_accounts	deleted	per post, until shared or expired
rop_publish_now_history[].status	queued → expired	per post, feeds the Sharing History table

Will affect the visual aspect of the product

NO. A stalled instant share stops showing the endless "Posting to social media…" spinner and reports Expired in the Sharing History table.

Test instructions

1. Go to WP Admin → Revive Social → Dashboard and connect one social account.

   Expect: the account shows as active on the dashboard.

2. Open the General Settings tab. Turn on Enable Instant Sharing Feature (Post on Publish) and Enable Instant Sharing By Default, then save.

   Expect: both settings stay on after a page reload.

3. Add define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', true ); to wp-config.php and make sure no system cron runs. Publish three posts.

   Expect: wp post meta get <ID> rop_publish_now_status prints queued for each post, and nothing is shared.

4. Backdate the three queue entries. Run this after step 3, while cron stays disabled. Replace 101, 102, 103 with the post IDs:

   wp eval 'foreach ( array( 101, 102, 103 ) as $id ) {
     $history = get_post_meta( $id, "rop_publish_now_history", true );
     foreach ( $history as $i => $row ) { $history[ $i ]["timestamp"] = time() - 90 * DAY_IN_SECONDS; }
     update_post_meta( $id, "rop_publish_now_history", $history );
   }'

   Expect: wp post meta get 101 rop_publish_now_history shows a timestamp about 90 days in the past.

5. Remove DISABLE_WP_CRON and publish one new post.

   Expect: only the new post reaches the connected account. For each old post, rop_publish_now_status is empty and the history status is expired.

6. Open one of the expired posts in the editor and click Update without touching the Revive Social panel.

   Expect: no new share reaches the account, and rop_publish_now_status stays empty.

Check before Pull Request is ready:

• I have written a test and included it in this PR
• I have run all tests and they pass
• The code passes when running the PHP CodeSniffer
• Code meets WordPress Coding Standards for PHP, HTML, CSS and JS
• Security and Sanitization requirements have been followed
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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Fixes stale Instant Sharing queues so expired posts are skipped instead of shared after cron recovery.

Changes:

• Adds expiration and orphan handling for queued shares.
• Prevents routine edits from re-queuing published posts.
• Adds PHPUnit and E2E regression coverage.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 9 out of 9 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
includes/class-rop.php	Registers the new post-save wrapper.
includes/admin/class-rop-admin.php	Adjusts post-save and metabox behavior.
includes/admin/models/class-rop-queue-model.php	Expires stale queue entries.
includes/admin/models/class-rop-posts-selector-model.php	Corrects the query batch parameter.
phpunit.xml	Registers the publish-now test suite.
tests/test-publish-now.php	Adds queue regression tests.
tests/e2e/fixtures/index.js	Exposes new E2E helpers.
tests/e2e/mu-plugins/rop-e2e-bootstrap.php	Adds backlog fixtures and state endpoints.
tests/e2e/specs/dashboard/publish-now-backlog.spec.js	Tests stale-backlog behavior end to end.

---

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[lucadobrescu]

Fixed in 79677b0. Confirmed the gap: the drain runs on a single event and rop_cron_job_publish_now never scheduled a follow-up, so with more than one batch of queued rows the oldest 300 were retired and everything after them — possibly including the just-published post — waited for an unrelated share event.

build_queue_publish_now() now calls manage_cron( array( 'action' => 'publish-now' ) ) when the selector returned a full batch. This terminates: get_publish_now_posts() sets rop_publish_now = 'no' on every row it returns, so each pass removes its own batch from the query window and the window strictly shrinks.

The batch size moved to Rop_Posts_Selector_Model::PUBLISH_NOW_BATCH_SIZE behind a new rop_publish_now_batch_size filter, which also makes it testable — test_full_batch_schedules_another_pass drops it to 2, queues 3 entries and asserts a follow-up event exists; test_partial_batch_does_not_reschedule guards the other direction so a drained queue does not keep rescheduling itself.

[lucadobrescu]

Good catch, fixed in 79677b0. Verified against src/instant/PostUpdate.js — isQueued = history.some( item => 'queued' === item.status ) at :134, and :155 renders the spinner on 'queued' === status || isQueued, so a leftover queued history row does keep the sidebar polling every 5s indefinitely even with the top-level status gone.

The orphan branch now retires the entry through expire_publish_now() instead of just deleting the status, so the accounts meta, the status and the history rows are all cleaned up together. expire_publish_now() took an optional $reason so the log line distinguishes the two cases — "has no accounts left to share to" vs "expired before it could be shared".

Covered by test_orphan_entry_retires_history, which asserts no queued row survives; it fails on the previous commit.

[lucadobrescu]

You're right, and this was the sharpest of the three — fixed in 79677b0.

The interaction is exactly as described: publish_now_attributes() pre-checks the box precisely when rop_publish_now is yes, i.e. when a share is still pending, so every ordinary Classic Editor save of such a post submits publish_now, passes the guard, and update_publish_now_history() merges into the existing queued row and overwrites timestamp with time(). A stalled entry's expiry clock reset on every edit, which defeats the cutoff this PR adds.

I went with "leave an already-queued request alone" rather than preserving the timestamp inside update_publish_now_history(), because the deliberate re-share path (REST share/{id} → rop_publish_now_instant_share → maybe_publish_now( $id, true )) merges into that same row and does want a fresh timestamp — preserving it unconditionally would make an explicit re-share expire instantly. Since a post that is already queued has nothing to add, maybe_publish_now_after_insert() now returns early on published posts when rop_publish_now_status is queued, which keeps the original timestamp intact as a side effect. Classic re-shares of a published post that is not already queued still work.

test_saving_a_pending_share_does_not_refresh_its_timestamp covers it: a post queued 5 days ago, edited with publish_now submitted, must keep its original timestamp and must still expire instead of sharing. On the previous commit it fails with the timestamp exactly 432000s newer.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 9 out of 9 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

Suppressed comments (1)

includes/admin/models/class-rop-queue-model.php:452

• Deleting this registered meta does not leave a neutral value: rop_publish_now_status has the REST/meta default pending (includes/admin/class-rop-admin.php:2141-2148). For an expired legacy entry or orphan with no history, the editor then skips its only empty-history guard (which requires done at src/instant/PostUpdate.js:164) and renders the successful-share UI with an empty history. Retire the request with the established terminal status instead.

		delete_post_meta( $post_id, 'rop_publish_now_status' );