Comments Held for Moderation or Sent to Trash Experience Significant Delays in Jetpack App

[alinclamba]

Issue description

A user reported an issue when comments are held for moderation or incorrectly sent to the trash folder, there is a significant delay (ranging from hours to days) before the comments become visible in the Jetpack app.

Expected behavior

Comments held for moderation or sent to the trash folder should appear in the app in real-time or after refreshing the comment section.

Relevant Info and Links

• Reported in Zendesk: 9190343-zd-a8c
• Discussed on Slack: 9190343-zd-a8c
• User site: https://unwantedlife.me/
• JPDB: https://jptools.wordpress.com/debug/?url=https://unwantedlife.me (🟢)

The user also reported that comments sent to the trash folder do not generate notifications. However, their primary concern is the significant delay in comment visibility within the app, regardless of tab or refresh attempts.

Steps to reproduce the behavior

I am unable to replicate this but from user, these are the steps:

1. A comment is made on a site with moderation enabled.
2. The comment is either held for moderation or sent to the trash folder due to spam settings.
3. The app does not immediately display the comment, even after refreshing.
4. The comment eventually appears in the "All" tab but only after an unpredictable delay.

Additional Information:

Host: Ionos
App Version: 25.5 (1449)
Devices: Samsung S24 Ultra, Vivo V21 5G

[dangermattic]

Thanks for reporting! 👍

[alinclamba]

Update from user:

I just had a comment left that can be found on my WordPress dashboard in the trash section, but nowhere to be found on your app no matter how many times I refresh. The comment was left six minutes before I checked

Screenshots in the ticket.

[alinclamba]

Slack ping: p1738162942508249/1735047977.296489-slack-C06NXHR5WQ1

[nbradbury]

@alinclamba Apologies for how long this has dragged on. I noticed that when I tried to access this sites XML-RPC endpoint, I received this message:

XML-RPC server accepts POST requests only.

So apparently this user - or their host - has disabled XmlRpc, and I'm wondering if re-enabling it would resolve the problem? @jkmassel Any insight into that?

[alinclamba]

@nbradbury thanks for looking into this. Actually, the message "XML-RPC server accepts POST requests only" shows up when XML-RPC is not blocked. It means the xmlrpc.php file is accessible, and also the Jetpack connection looks good.

[nbradbury]

Actually, the message "XML-RPC server accepts POST requests only" shows up when XML-RPC is not blocked.

🤦

@alinclamba I'm afraid I'm still stumped by this, especially given we're not seeing similar complaints. However, I did notice they have the Antispam Bee plugin installed. This is not a plugin I'm familiar with, and I don't wish to blame it unnecessarily, but I'm wondering if it's somehow involved with this issue?

[alinclamba]

Updates:

So, as a summary, it looks like trashed comments aren’t syncing in the Jetpack app at all for the user. This isn’t just a delay, some comments never show up, even after refreshing, from what the user shared so far.

What we know so far:

• Spam comments sync fine, but trashed ones don’t.
• Refreshing doesn’t force a sync for Trash.
• User found a comment in Trash in the WP dashboard, but it didn’t exist in the app.
• No spam plugin active, so Jetpack itself is likely handling these differently.

What is happening now:

• I've asked user to test if restoring a trashed comment makes it appear in the app instantly.

Next/Questions:

• Is there any way to force sync for all comments, including Trash?
• Are trashed comments intentionally deprioritized in the app’s sync, or is this an unexpected issue?

[alinclamba]

Another update

User responded but is now reporting another issue. Specifically, they’re saying that comments are automatically sent to Trash even though their settings allow previously approved commenters to bypass moderation.

Not sure if this is related to the initial issue, but first, we need to confirm if the Jetpack app is syncing comments differently, since the issue with missing trashed comments is only happening in the app, not in the web view.

Any insights on whether the app treats Trash differently in sync logic?

[nbradbury]

@alinclamba I checked their discussion settings and noticed they have a large number of items in the "Disallowed comments" setting. Any chance this is the source of the problem?

[alinclamba]

WOW! Thank you, @nbradbury! I'm asking the user if that's the cause!