Why does Wordpress featured image not save when I publish my post?

Question

I inherited this website from another developer. We recently updated the Advanced Custom Fields PRO plugin to fix a different issue and it was working fine. I got a call this morning that the featured image appears when being added to the post, but when they publish it the featured image disappears.

I've checked to make sure that featured images are allowed. Existing posts display the featured image, but editing or adding new posts and then publishing does not attach the image to the post.

I've looked at the save_post hook methods and they don't touch the featured image at all.

Any ideas?

Here's the method added via the 'save_post' hook:

function save_listing($listing_id, $post) {
  global $wpdb;
  if ('listings' != $post->post_type)
    return;
  //store fullDescription, keywords and categories in wp_listings
  $full_description = get_field('listing_full_description', $listing_id);
  $keywords = get_field('listing_keywords', $listing_id);
  $terms = wp_get_post_terms($listing_id, 'listing-categories', ['fields' => 'names']);
  $categories = implode(", ", $terms);
  $tier = get_field('listing_tier', $listing_id);
  $tier = array_search($tier, ['standard', 'premium', 'platinum']) + 1;
  $wpdb->replace('wp_listings', ['id' => $listing_id, 'title' => $post->post_title, 'fullDescription' => $full_description, 'keywords' => $keywords, 'categories' => $categories, 'tier' => $tier], ['%d', '%s', '%s', '%s', '%s', '%d']);

  $locations = get_field('listing_locations', $listing_id);
  $wpdb->delete('wp_locations', ['listing_id' => $listing_id], ['%d']);
  if (!isset($locations))
    return;
  if ($post->post_status != 'publish')
    return;
  foreach ($locations as $loc_number => $location) {
    $disabled = isset($location['disable_map_location']) && $location['disable_map_location'] ? 1 : 0;

    $wpdb->insert('wp_locations', ['listing_id' => $listing_id, 'loc_number' => $loc_number, 'lat' => $location['map']['lat'], 'lng' => $location['map']['lng'],
      'zip' => $location['zip'], 'city' => $location['city'], 'state' => $location['state'], 'disabled' => $disabled], ['%d', '%d', '%f', '%f', '%s', '%s', '%s', '%d']);
  }
}

add_action('save_post', 'save_listing', 100000000, 2);

Also verified that featured images are supported

if (function_exists('add_theme_support')) {  
add_theme_support('post-thumbnails'); }

I have verified that on post save the post meta data includes "_thumbnail_id" and there is a post attachment corresponding with that ID. However when the page reloads there is no Featured Image.

which theme? Des the theme support featured image?? Add some code — Rajendran Nadar
Try deleting your browsers cache and see if that works. If not are you sure the the_post_thumbnail() is in the template file? — Shaun
It's a custom theme. Featured images have been working up to this point (over the past two years). There's no code to add. The issue is with the WordPress Edit screen. When publishing the post the featured image disappears. — dawoodman71
Added the save_post hook method. There's no mention of the featured image though. — dawoodman71
I also tried a standard post and get the same result. I can add the featured image, but when I publish it goes away. — dawoodman71

dawoodman71 dawoodman71 · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-30T15:57:49

So after looking at the $_POST after saving and then cross-referencing the post meta data I found that the _thumbnail_id was not getting saved in the meta data. Still not sure why, but I fixed it by adding this code to my save_post hook method:

update_post_meta($post->ID, '_thumbnail_id', filter_input(INPUT_POST, '_thumbnail_id') );

This feels a bit hacky but the whole site is hacky :)

Why does Wordpress featured image not save when I publish my post?

1 Answers