Location Search Results Patched In Store Locator Plus® v2503.06

Store Locator Plus® has two settings related to how many locations are returned when displaying a map. The first setting “Number To Show Initially” is the setting that determines how many locations will be shown when the map first renders. The locations are typically the first n-locations that are closest to the center point of the map unless other setting are adjusted to do something different. The second is the “Number To Show” after a search. This is the maximum number of locations that will be returned when a user enters and address and searches for locations.

Somewhere along the way the location search results settings got muddled and often the number of locations to be shown after a search was ignored. Instead the “Number To Show Initially” was used for both settings. We are not sure exactly when the behavior changed, likely during a huge thousand-lines-of-code update forced upon us by the folks at the WordPress Plugin Directory in the name of “security patches” (don’t even get me started on that topic). Regardless, an attentive user reported the problem along with the steps to reproduce the errant behavior. We were able to issue a patch for that issue and roll it into our March 2025 update on the SaaS platform (plugin users are also impacted).

Location Search Report Update

location search report

An issue impacting location search report was reported by several users after our SaaS platform update earlier this week. We were able to locate and resolve the underlying issue. A new version was released within 24 hours of the initial report and updated on our SaaS platform in version 2502.25.01 which went live earlier today.

Location search reports are available with the Professional and Enterprise level subscriptions.

Location Search Report Update for WordPress Plugin Users

Users of the legacy WordPress plugins, notably the Power plugin, will also be impacted by this issue and should update their Store Locator Plus® plugin stack. It should be noted that the main Store Locator Plus® plugin will no longer automatically update due to changes with our WordPress.org plugin listing. You will need to go to the WordPress plugin store and download an updated version there. If you do not have a WordPress plugin store account you will need to create one.

Users of the SaaS platform do not need to do anything, the search location report updates are automatically available and activated as part of your SaaS subscription.

Ignore Radius Update

In addition to the location search report update, users that have set the Radius Behavior to Do Not Use under the Search settings had an issue with results not being returned. This issue was also patched in the 2502.25.01 release that went to production on our SaaS platform earlier today.

Users of the Experience plugin will be impacted as well. The same instructions noted above apply to downloading the latest version of Store Locator Plus® from the plugin store. Users of the SaaS platform do not need to do anything; software updates are automatically available and activated as part of your SaaS subscription.

Post Image by Lance Cleveland from Pixabay

Store Locator Plus® Update Coming This Weekend

The Store Locator Plus® SaaS platform will be updated this weekend after months of restructuring servers and software. The new version will be running the latest versions of PHP and MySQL on top of cloud based container services. These updates are expected to improve overall stability and performance of the SaaS platform.

Most changes will not be readily apparent to most users outside of some basic user interface updates including menu restructuring and the new locator style interface. Once the new servers and software take over for our production SaaS login it will provide the ability for our team to provide release more frequently and in smaller packages. We are hoping this leads to faster response times addressing customer issues and the ability for our team to launch new features, big or small, on a faster release schedule.

You can learn more about what changes are coming that will impact the user experience in our New Locator Updates Coming Soon post.

Expected Downtime

During this transition we anticipate the main SaaS website to be unavailable for users to login for up to 30 minutes on Sunday February 23rd, 2025 starting around noon EST. Map rendering on customer sites should see little to no impact during this update.

The update is expected to be finished and the new system to be fully online for users by 4PM EST the same day.

If you have issues logging in or notice problems with your locator installation after 4PM EST on February 23rd 2025 please contact us using the contact form within the dashboard page or via the contact form here.

Post Image by Lars Nissen from Pixabay