Distributor: Could not pull content from connection due to error. (external connection)

I'm having a similar issue tho my setup is slightly different. (I'm using Themify Post Type Builder to create custom post types). Do you get this error too on the connection? All my credentials are correct and still get this all the time

yes am getting this same error

I'm having a similar issue tho my setup is slightly different. (I'm using Themify Post Type Builder to create custom post types). Do you get this error too on the connection? All my credentials are correct and still get this all the time

@msaidizi and @shockthealien please confirm that you're following the precise steps to set up External Connections using Application Passwords as these should be the exact steps necessary to create fully functioning non-multisite connections for Distributor.

@jeffpaul yes Thats the instructions i followed to set it up

me too

@jeffpaul yes Thats the instructions i followed to set it up

I deleted everything and refollowed those instructions step by step and I got it to work....

@jeffpaul I deleted everything too and still not working. Does it have to use the Application Passwords plugin? it keeps giving me this error even tho I have performed the fix suggested

@jeffpaul any advice on this? need to decide on which route to take to build the group of websites and I have the directors breathing down my neck to get moving

BTW i have scrapped Themify PTB and im just using normal posts now with a couple custom meta fields

@shockthealien we strongly recommend using the Application Passwords plugin on the site you are connecting to in order to create a unique password for Distributor's connections. Alternatively, you can create an application with the WordPress.com applications manager as the authentication method.

@jeffpaul thanks. I'm not against using the plugin, I just don't seem to be able to get it to work even performing the troubleshooting they suggest to fix it, so I don't really know how to fix that.

I looked into the WP.com application and i don't know what half of the things it asks for are so I doubt that is the way forward

@shockthealien we're working to add more and better error messaging in #269, ideally targeted for our next Distributor release, that would help me further troubleshoot this for you. Can you confirm that you're using the Application Passwords user password and not Account Management user password? Can you also confirm that you're adding wp-json to the end of the External Connection URL?

@jeffpaul thanks for the reply. Yes, I am using the password created with the Application Passwords plugin and not the WP user password. And yes I am adding the wp-json to the URL.

I'm sure this all stems from the AP plugin not working properly since it is still showing the error i posted about earlier. I have reinstalled it and performed their suggested fix but unfortunately, it is still showing the same error

For more context, the setup I'm working with is one central site (mainsite as per your instructions?) for all news articles for the group (http://checkmark.ateb-group.co.uk) and four other websites for different parts of the business and I need to push only the relevant news to these sites. Currently I have one of them I'm trying to get this working with (http://home.ateb-group.co.uk)(remotesite?).

I have distributor and AP on both sites installed. I have edited the .htaccess file on both as per AP instructions too

@shockthealien thanks for giving that a try, sorry that this hasn't gone smoothly for you. Can you confirm the plugins and theme you have installed and active? That won't likely show an immediate cause, but it may help troubleshooting in the future if we know there's a plugin/theme compatibility issue with Distributor.

@shockthealien are the checkmark and home subdomain sites set up within a multisite instance or are these separate WordPress instances but mapped to the same domain?

no worries. Thanks for trying to help.

I am Using Themify Builder pro on all of the sites. The checkmark one is using themify ultra theme, heavily customised. The group one is using Themify Basic theme and pretty much built from scratch from there.

They are separate independent WP instances on each subdomain. Also they are not likely the final domains. On release they will likely each have their own proper full domain

@jeffpaul plugin wise, theres quite a few. Ive Screenshotted the lists. Hope that helps

@jeffpaul just as an experiment I tried setting up one of the other sites i hadnt touched yet, fresh WP installation. Just AP and Distributor installed and getting the same issue. So i dont think the plugins have anything to do with this.

@jeffpaul any updates on this issue? I am really stuck with this and not sure how to move it forward. Is the wordpress application an alternative way of doing the same? if so, any chance of some help setting that up?

@shockthealien no, I haven't been able to setup a replica environment yet to try and reproduce your issues to try and find a solution. I don't have documentation on the WP.com app set up process, though if you give that a try and take some notes I'd gladly turn those into step-by-step instructions for our docs.

@jeffpaul Thanks. I could grant you access to my environment if that helps?

Same problem with two fresh vanilla installs of WordPress on local server, i.e. two domains both with 127.0.0.1 -- limited/yellow connection status as per conversation above and then "Could not pull content from connection due to error." when clicking on the pull menu item (note: using user/pass method as wordpress.com method does not work for locally hosted sites).

Thanks for the input @Youdaman, are you seeing any console errors, potential conflicting plugins or configurations that could help further triage this issue?

None unfortunately. Steps to repro were just unzip the latest wordpress twice, do two fresh installs, install only distributor on both and try to use it. I'm on Windows 10 if that matters with Apache 2.4.20 and PHP 7.2.9