transition_post_status hook doesn't have any POST data when fired

[drov0]

Hello,

Describe the bug

When placing a hook on transition_post_status I can see it fired but no POST data is available, to get that post data I have to use the save_post hook which is inconvenient since I don't get the $new_status and $old_status infos.

To Reproduce

1. Hook into transition_post_status. Something like the following code in functions.php will do the job:

add_action( 'transition_post_status', 'log_data', 10, 3 );
function log_data( $new_status, $old_status, $post ) {
error_log(json_encode($_POST));
}

2. Create a new gutenberg post and publish it

[swissspidy]

Sounds correct to me, as the editor saves content via the REST API. Why do you need $_POST data?

[drov0]

Hello, Thanks for your answer !

I need the $_POST data to get the content of the custom metaboxes that I put for my plugin.
Basically it's like a share to social media button and there is a checkbox like "publish to social media".

On the hook it looks like something like this (this is simplified, the actual logic is a bit longer but you get the idea):

if ($new_status == 'publish' && $old_status != 'publish') {
              
  if (isset($_POST['Steempress_sp_steem_publish']) && $_POST['Steempress_sp_steem_publish'] == 1)
                $this->Steempress_sp_publish($post->ID);
}

So on gutenberg I can't get the content of the metaboxes to execute that logic.

[cklosowski]

I'm also running into this problem, needing to use transition_post_status as it comes with necessary data like the previous status, new status, and the post content being passed in from a metabox.

[cklosowski]

Is there any movement on this? It seems like a regression was broken here. Scheduling posts for the future still calls transition_post_status even if it's 1 minute in the future. But simply clicking 'Add New' and then publishing immediately is not firing this.

I get that it's using the rest api, but a regression is a regression either way. Hooks that previously were called when hitting publish immediately, are no longer being called.

[gnanasekaranl]

+1 Same issue. transition_post_status Hook not calling when to publish a post

[gnanasekaranl]

When transition_post_status used, I got " 400 Bad Request " when post publishes and auto saving post(autosaves?_locale=user - every 2 or 3 seconds auto hit by default) in API response but not all the time.

One time I got 200 and other time 400 when autosaving

[RavanH]

@swissspidy

Sounds correct to me, as the editor saves content via the REST API. Why do you need $_POST data?

In my case, for catching custom post metadata field submission for instance. Or is that data available via the API and if so, how?

[niklaz]

I can confirm that using Gutenberg and publishing post, has issues with transition_post_status, as it passes only new_to_auto-draft and publish_to_publish.

There are missing:
pending_to_publish, new_to_publish, draft_to_publish, auto-draft_to_publish

[RavanH]

Did some testing with small test plugin for issue #15094 and it does indeed reveal that when publishing a draft post (from the post edit page, not from quick edit or from future/planned status via wp_cron) that there are actually two requests fired so transition_post_status gets called twice:

1. First without $_POST data but with old status draft and new status publish (REST_REQUEST is set, is_admin() is false)
2. Then with $_POST data but with both old and new status set to publish (is_admin() is true at this point)

This means that a completely valid test to be able to act on a fresh publication (and not an existing post edit) with if ($new_status == 'publish' && $old_status != 'publish') for example, holds true only for the first pass which is without the $_POST data.

With Classic Editor or on pre-Gutenberg WordPress, this was not the case. Plugins that depend on $_POST data (not the old data that was stored as draft in the database) break because of this. And what is worse: there is no way to work around it as far as I can think of :(

[jaredharbour]

I am having similar problems. My plugin takes some action based on a post being published and with Gutenberg enabled transition_post_status isn't even firing for me. I need to do some more digging but is there another way of monitoring post status within a plugin when using Gutenberg?