Temporary access for debugging interaction with WordPress Business Hosting

  • Unknown's avatar
    marstest · Member ·

    Hi folks – I develop the popular Mac blogging app, MarsEdit, and I support a number of WordPress.com customers who use the business hosting plan. In the past I have had to advise folks how to set up a password via wp-admin to accommodate connecting via XMLRPC, but I hear from a customer today that things might have changed in the setup on the WordPress end.

    Previously you have granted me a temporary business hosting account so I could test the integration with MarsEdit. Would you be willing to do this again? Ideally it would be nice if you could grant me a permanent business hosting account that I will only use for testing integration with the service. But if you can only do it temporarily again that would be great.

    Thanks for the help!
    Daniel

    WP.com: Yes
    Correct account: Yes

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to moderators and staff)

  • Unknown's avatar
    helper-heroponriki · Member ·

    In the past I have had to advise folks how to set up a password via wp-admin to accommodate connecting via XMLRPC, but I hear from a customer today that things might have changed in the setup on the WordPress end.

    Nothing has changed on our end. If they downgraded their Business plan, then they would no longer have that access – if not, have them reach out to support via their account and we can better advise:

    https://wordpress.com/help/contact

    Previously you have granted me a temporary business hosting account so I could test the integration with MarsEdit.

    I show no previous record of conversations with us here at WordPress.com regarding this. What account would this have been done under and specifically which sites did this apply to? Otherwise we don’t provide free Business accounts for testing purposes, so I’m not sure where or when this would have happened. Once we have that information, we’ll be better able to advise.

    Thanks.

  • Unknown's avatar
    redsweater · Member ·

    Thanks for the quick answer! I will ask them to get in touch with you directly if you don’t think anything has changed.

    The test accont that Automattic set me up with was in 2018 and at the time was hosted at testingmarsedit20180308test.blog … as you can guess by the .blog domain it was probably used because they had (have?) the discretion to provide a dedicated URL through that domain, being the stewards of it.

    Anyway I think it’s a shame if you can’t still offer a testing account for folks who are trying to improve the interoperability of 3rd party apps, but I’ll try to make the most of it asking my customers to test for me and let me know how things work.

    I appreciate the follow-up,

    Daniel

  • staff-blorbo · Staff ·

    Ah I do see that site. It was set up under a different account, so the notes are all there.

    Do you still have access to that account?

    We don’t have anything on our end that would be blocking MarsEdit and other blogging clients, however, folks can install plugins under our Business and eCommerce plans, which will change how the sites function.

    In particular, many popular security plugins recommend disabling XML-RPC and offer a one-click way to do that.

    You might want to ask your customers if the issue continues with all plugins except Jetpack disabled. ((Jetpack is required as the “glue” on these plugin-powered Business and eCommerce plan sites, and it has nothing that would block XML-RPC, in fact it requires it. :) ))

  • Unknown's avatar
    sweatertest · Member ·

    Haha, sorry, I guess I’m bouncing around all my various test WordPress accounts. I think maybe it was under this one?

    I wasn’t thinking that anything had changed with respect to blocking, but there’s a kind of a special dance that business customers have to do because the standard WordPress application passwords don’t work to authenticate XMLRPC, so I have this fairly cumbersome list of instructions that I give to customers on how to navigate to the wp-admin panel (instead of the WordPress.com auth interface), create a new application password there, and use that in MarsEdit. The customer wasn’t seeing the same things in the interface that I expected so I was hoping to be able to refresh my understanding of how it works now, and see if anything had changed.

    I understand if it’s too complicated to grant a complimentary access like you did before. It would be nice, but I’ll get around it. Ideally WordPress.com would upate the behavior of business/plugin-upgraded sites so that the same application passwords that work for regular WordPress.com accounts would work when authenticating XMLRPC for those upgraded sites. Last I had heard about the situation I think it was a side-effect of the Business sites effectively being run independently of the other blogs. But that would be great if users didn’t have to run around trying to figure this out. It always feels a little weird to explain to customers who have paid for a premium WordPress.com experience that this one aspect doesn’t work as seamlessly as the lower-cost plans,

    Daniel

  • staff-sheva · Staff ·

    Hi Daniel,

    I just wanted to let you know that I’ve reached out to you via your WordPress.com account email for @sweatertest. Please check your inbox when you have a moment.

  • Unknown's avatar
    sweatertest · Member ·

    Thank you staff-sheva – got the email – much appreciated. Thanks to you all for following up so promptly.

    Daniel

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