Thanks for the suggestions and I’m sorry that you were experiencing strange behavior with WP/BP. I only wish that I had caught this sooner.

As per your last idea, WP Hook Sniffer has performed that check since day one. Although, it does not do so during activation, it does so after activation so that it can display a warning message at the top of hook sniffer’s settings screen.

I felt it best to let the plugin activate so as to provide a warning message but just not function—other than allowing settings to be changed. So, if the modified plugin.php file is not installed, it will not fire the routines that output the hook sniffer information. In the pending new version, I’ve taken it a step further by versioning the modified plugin.php file. WP Hook Sniffer will now make sure that not only the modified plugin.php file is installed, but also the proper version of that file.

As to your first suggestion, I agree that reinstalling the original, stock plugin.php file upon plugin deactivation is a good idea. That way, people can simply activate hook sniffer when they need to figure out an action or filter hook firing issue and then when done, deactivate and rest assured that their stock WP install is as it should be—with no modifications to the plugin.php file.

I will work on coding that into the upcoming version as well.

Thanks for the comment and the donation!

One possible improvement would be to have hook sniffer automatically replace the original WordPress plugins.php file on activation, and then restore it to the original file when the plugin is deactivated. That way, future problems will easily be found using first line debugging techniques. Don’t forget to handle the situation of the WordPress install being upgraded between hook sniffer activation and deactivation, to avoid restoring plugins.php to an out of date version.

You also might want to think about taking a hash of the original plugins.php file during the replacement operation and blocking activation of hook sniffer if it doesn’t match the right value. That way, if WordPress is upgraded, overwrites the plugins.php file, and the plugin re-activates …and the newly upgraded plugins.php file has been modified from the previous version… the plugin will not activate.

These are, of course, only suggestions. We’ll continue to enjoy wp hook sniffer no matter what you do to it.

^F^

I was expecting some small issues anyway but, the good news is that I was able to use the hook sniffer info to quickly get to exactly what I needed. (I was so impressed I donated!)

I am looking forward to the latest and greatest version because I envisage the need to use those cool geek-worth features when the project goes into overdrive, thanks for letting me know you’re still on the case…