Blogs loop not working property when blog has no description

[lenasterg]

Hi.
I noticed that the queries used in bp-blogs/classes/class-bp-blogs-blog.php
in lines ​https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/src/bp-blogs/classes/class-bp-blogs-blog.php#L274
and ​https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/src/bp-blogs/classes/class-bp-blogs-blog.php#L290 don't
return blogs that don't have a 'description'.
Also due to many LEFT JOINS the queries for largescale installations are slow.
In the proposed pull request,
the LEFT JOIN for bm_description:

• is needed only if we have search_terms
• it uses LEFT JOIN ... ON (b.blog_id = bm_description.blog_id AND bm_description.meta_key = 'description') so if a blog doesn't have a description in wp_bp_user_blogs_blogmeta it will be included in the results

Bests,
Lena

This patch:

• Uses one less LEFT JOIN when we don't use any search terms for blogs.
• Blogs which don't have a description in wp_bp_user_blogs_blogmeta it will also be included in the results.

Trac ticket: ​https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/9136

[imath]

Thanks for reminding this ticket in Slack @lenasterg I doubt we can include the fix into 12.5 but I’ll check it for sure during 14.0.0 dev cycle.

[imath]

Hi @lenasterg

I've looked into this. With a regular BuddyPress usage, I can't reproduce and the unit tests we perform after each PR or commit can't too.

We do not provide any UI or ways to edit records we have into the wp_bp_user_blogs_blogmeta table. Data are simply there to have a single table to get all sites options which are in many wp_{site_id}_options table in a WordPress multisite config.

These records are updated each time you update a site option from the WordPress General option screen for example.

So the description blogmeta always exists. It can only be empty if the site has no description, but even in this case sites with empty descriptions are included into results.

If into the wp_bp_user_blogs_blogmeta table you have no description meta key for sites with empty blogdescription, try to repopulate blog records using this ​repair tool. If it's not fixing the issue, there's probably a plugin or a script which is messing with BuddyPress on your setup.

That being said, you are right we should improve these queries and probably enjoy WP_Network_Query.

Your suggestion doesn't seem to hurt according to unit tests so unless there's a strong opinion, I'll probably commit your PR.

[lenasterg]

Thanks @imath.
I hope there won't be any opinion against my PR.

[imath]

In 13902:

Blogs: slightly improve the query to get network sites

Only include the sql part to query according to site descriptions when needed: when a search is performed.

Props lenasterg

Fixes #9136
Closes ​https://github.com/buddypress/buddypress/pull/272