Disabling "Post via email" triggers deprecation notices upon save

[manbo]

If you disable Post via email on the management screen, an error will occur when you press the save button.

add_filter( 'enable_post_by_email_configuration', '__return_false' );

# PHP Deprecated:  strip_tags(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4958

As a makeshift measure, I suppressed the error using the following method.

add_action( 'update_option', function() {
        if( isset( $_POST['option_page'] ) && $_POST['option_page'] === 'writing' ) {
                if( !isset( $_POST['mailserver_url'] ) ) {
                        $_POST['mailserver_url'] = '';
                }
                if( !isset( $_POST['mailserver_login'] ) ) {
                        $_POST['mailserver_login'] = '';
                }
                if( !isset( $_POST['mailserver_pass'] ) ) {
                        $_POST['mailserver_pass'] = '';
                }
        }
} );

Please improve it so that saving the three items to the database is ignored when email posting is disabled.

[sebastienserre]

Hello,

Thank you for reporting this issue.
Which PHP verison are you running ? I do not reproduce with PHP8.1.28 and PHP 8.2.18

[manbo]

Hello.
Thank you for your reply.

Version
PHP 8.2.18
WordPress 6.5.2

The problem also occurred when I installed WordPress and added the code to functions.php in the standard theme without doing anything.

PHP Deprecated:  strip_tags(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4958
PHP Deprecated:  strip_tags(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4958
PHP Deprecated:  strip_tags(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4958
PHP Deprecated:  explode(): Passing null to parameter #2 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4964
PHP Deprecated:  explode(): Passing null to parameter #2 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4964

[siliconforks]

Replying to sebastienserre:

Hello,

Thank you for reporting this issue.
Which PHP verison are you running ? I do not reproduce with PHP8.1.28 and PHP 8.2.18

You will probably have to set WP_DEBUG to true in wp-config.php to reproduce this.

[manbo]

I always enable debug mode to make sure I don't miss any errors.

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false  );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );

[ironprogrammer]

Reproduction Report

I am able to reproduce this issue with the provided example of disabling ​enable_post_by_email_configuration.

Environment

• Hardware: MacBook Pro Apple M1 Pro
• OS: macOS 14.5
• Browser: Safari 17.5
• Server: nginx/1.27.0
• PHP: 8.2.19
• MySQL: 8.0.27
• WordPress: 6.6-alpha-57778-src
• Active Plugins:
  • post-via-email (mu plugin with add_filter( 'enable_post_by_email_configuration', '__return_false' );)

Actual Results

• ✅ With "Post via email" feature disabled on the Writing Settings page (/wp-admin/options-writing.php), clicking Save Changes results in following deprecations in the debug log:

  PHP Deprecated:  strip_tags(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /Users/brian/Sites/wordpress-develop/src/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4946
  

[ironprogrammer]

Welcome back to Trac, and thanks for the report, @manbo!

As the deprecation notice indicates, the issue is nulls passed into ​`sanitize_option()` here, where mailserver_url, mailserver_login, and mailserver_pass are by default ​included in the options to update. Even though the fields are suppressed with the hook and aren't present in the $_POST data, options.php ​sets each included option to `null` and then passes it to update_option().

Perhaps sanitize_option() could be updated to improve processing when these particular [optional] fields are null? Switching to ​wp_strip_all_tags may be appropriate, since the other options in this case statement shouldn't be negatively affected by the <script> and <style> tag-removing "limitation" of that function.

Tagging with php81, where this deprecation was introduced. I feel we may be too close to 6.6 beta for this to be addressed, but I'm optimistically milestoning for 6.7.

[ironprogrammer]

Another nuance to consider: With the disablement filter in place and changes saved, once the filter is subsequently removed, the mailserver_url, mailserver_login, and mailserver_pass will be empty, as they were unintentionally nulled by update_option() 🙃. Maybe these options should be skipped from processing altogether when the feature is disabled, to preserve the values?

[siliconforks]

Replying to ironprogrammer:

Maybe these options should be skipped from processing altogether when the feature is disabled, to preserve the values?

I believe the code is attempting to do this already:

​https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/blob/6.5.3/src/wp-admin/options.php#L206-L208

However, there seems to be a bug in the logic, as that code is executed only on multisite (which doesn't really make sense).

Trac ticket: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/61144

[narenin]

Hi @manbo

I have created [PR]https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/61144 with patch, can you please check with this.

[ironprogrammer]

Thanks for the patch, @narenin!

In consideration of avoiding duplicate code, what do you think about moving the filter check outside of the multisite test completely, like where $mail_options is defined? This would mitigate the need for the current else block and show clear intent that updating these fields doesn't depend on single or multisite.

[narenin]

Thanks @ironprogrammer for the feedback.

The suggestions looks good to me, I have implemented the same.

Hi @ironprogrammer

Thanks for the feedback, I have implemented the suggestion can you please check.

Hi @ironprogrammer

Thanks for the feedback, I have implemented the suggestion can you please check.

Hi @ironprogrammer

Thanks for the feedback, I have implemented the suggestion can you please check.

[ironprogrammer]

The patch is looking good! I've added needs-testing to get more eyes/testing on it for eventual 6.7 consideration.

Test Report

Patch tested: ​https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/6693

Environment

• Hardware: MacBook Pro Apple M1 Pro
• OS: macOS 14.5
• Browser: Safari 17.5
• Server: nginx/1.27.0
• PHP: 8.2.19
• MySQL: 8.0.27
• WordPress: 6.6-alpha-57778-src
• Active Plugins:
  • post-via-email (mu plugin with add_filter( 'enable_post_by_email_configuration', 'return_false' );)

Actual Results

• ✅ With "Post via email" feature disabled on the Writing Settings page, saving changes no longer triggers the strip_tags() PHP deprecation notice in the debug log.
• ✅ Values stored for "Post via email" options prior to disabling the feature are retained after the feature has been reenabled, rather than being unintentionally cleared out (see comment:7).