FixBack: a WordPress plugin

Tuesday, 26 July 2005

Latest version is 1.1.

FixBack is a WordPress plugin that ensures trackbacks and pingbacks are sent with the correct link back to your blog. This fixes a problem in the current version of WordPress.

Basic (unfancy) WordPress permalinks look like this:
www.blog.com/index.php?p=42

If you have fancy permalinks enabled, you’ll have fancy permalinks that look like this:
www.blog.com/2005/07/11/ecky-thump/

If you publish a post and send pingbacks or trackbacks to other blogs, your permalink URL is sent as part of the ping/trackback.

Unfortunately, if you create a post in WordPress 1.5.1.3, save it as a draft, and then publish it, then WordPress will send pingbacks and trackbacks with the unfancy URL instead of the fancy one. The same thing happens if you create a post and click “Advanced Editing” before publishing it. (Behind the scenes, WordPress creates a draft when you do this.)

This plugin fixes this error. There is a very detailed explanation of the problem and the solution in my WordPress pingback and trackback bug post.

Compatibility

Fixback works with WordPress versions 1.5.1.1 and higher. However, WordPress 2 fixes the pingback/trackback bug, so Fixback is not necessary if you’re using WordPress 2.

Installation

  1. Download the fixback.php file (see the end of this article for download location)
  2. Copy fixback.php into your WordPress plugins directory (wp-content/plugins).
  3. Log in to WordPress Admin. Go to the Plugins page and click Activate for FixBack
  4. That’s all

Download

You can download fixback.php or view the source code. Don’t forget to check out all the other plugins available here — there’s bound to be one that you will find useful.

I write these WordPress plugins because I enjoy doing it, but it does take up a lot of my time. If you think this plugin is useful, please consider donating some appropriate amount.

Click here to donate using a credit card or PayPal.

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1542gqyprvQd7gwvtZZ4x25cPeGWVKg45x

Full WordPress plugin list

  • Code Markup — Quickly paste code samples into your posts -- you can even include HTML markup in the code sample.
  • Evermore — Automatically display a short preview of your posts on the home page and other multiple-post pages, along with a link to the full post.
  • FixBack — Ensure trackbacks and pingbacks are sent with the correct link back to your blog.
  • Less — Less is no more. It has been renamed to Seemore and moved to its own Seemore plugin page.
  • Plaintext — Allow your readers to download source files (e.g. PHP, HTML, ASP) as plain text.
  • Safe Title — Use HTML in post titles in the default WordPress theme (or any other theme).
  • Search Meter — Find out what people are searching for on your blog, so you can write what your visitors want to read.
  • Seemore — Change the (more...) link so it jumps to the full post, not just the part after the link.
  • Top Cat — Specify a main category for your posts, and use template tags to display posts differently according to their main category.

41 comments

Both comments and pings are currently closed.

  1. boris
    4 August 2005 at 7:56 pm

    Thanks for this plugin. Was already desperate because my shiny new permalinks wouldn’t show up in trackbacks…

  2. Johan
    30 September 2005 at 3:49 pm

    Thanks for this – it took me a month or so until I noticed the bug but it took only about 3 minutes to find your solution to it.

  4. Ryan
    21 December 2005 at 5:01 am

    First, thanks for the great plugin. I’ve got it running on two of my WP 1.5.2 blogs.

    I’m working on a new one that’s using WP 2.0. Is this plugin still necessary, or did the bug get fixed?

  5. Bennett
    21 December 2005 at 6:53 am

    Looks as if it’ll be fixed. The comments for the relevant WordPress bug report say that the problem will be fixed in the next release — that’ll be WordPress 2.0. I’ll update this page once the new WordPrreess is officially released and I can confirm the fix.

  6. Vinnie
    29 December 2005 at 9:39 am

    Will there be a fix/upgrade for the new Word Press 2 template? I don’t want to upgrade to the new version until I know this plug-in is working fully for it.

    Great plug-in and thanks.

  7. Bennett
    6 January 2006 at 10:52 am

    Vinnie, It looks as if WordPress 2 has been fixed so that Fixback isn’t necessary. I’ll confirm that once I have tested WordPress 2.

  8. Stanley
    19 February 2006 at 6:46 pm

    Thank you for being generous with your resources… I hope that you will receive more than you need for your time and energy. Keep at work!

  9. war59312
    2 June 2006 at 6:05 pm

    Sweet, thanks a ton Bennett for posting a link to the bug report. Just applied the patch to my 1.5.2 install and fixed the problem. 🙂

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