Jetpack 9.6.1 loads old classes during WooCommerce setup

[waclawjacek]

Steps to reproduce the issue

As reported in Automattic/woocommerce-payments#1663, there is an error that can be observed when installing Jetpack using WooCommerce's setup flow. This issue is only present on Jetpack ≥ 9.6.

For some more details on how this relates to WooCommerce and WooCommerce Payments (incl. how and why the error doesn't happen on older WC versions), please see the link above.

I am seeing the error on:

• Jetpack 9.6.1 (also on 9.6).
• WordPress 5.7.1.
• WooCommerce 5.2.2.

(The version of WooCommerce Payments installed by the WooCommerce setup wizard is 2.3.0.)

The error can be replicated by:

1. Installing WooCommerce on a new site (and nothing else).
2. Going through the onboarding flow, selecting WCPay and Jetpack as the plugins to install.
3. The installation will fail but leave this page open.
4. In a new tab, go to the Plugins page. WCPay will be enabled, Jetpack will be installed but disabled.
5. Remove the installed version of Jetpack and replace it with Jetpack 9.5.2.
6. Click Retry in the tab with the WC onboarding.
7. Setup will continue.

Alternatively, this flow can be tested by first installing Jetpack 9.5.2 (regardless of whether it's active) and then attempting the onboarding in which case there will be no error at any point of the process.

What I expected

Jetpack is installed successfully during the WooCommerce setup flow.

What happened instead

An error is shown and the installation doesn't proceed.

Screenshots

[jrodger]

In case it helps, WooCommerce Payments is using version 2.8.0 of the Jetpack autoloader.

[jeherve]

cc @ObliviousHarmony @kbrown9, in case something comes to your mind.

[kbrown9]

I'm trying to reproduce the problem, but I'm not sure how to get to step 2:

1. Installing WooCommerce on a new site (and nothing else).
2. Going through the onboarding flow, selecting WCPay and Jetpack as the plugins to install.

I don't see a screen plugin install screen that shows WCPay and Jetpack in the onboarding flow. I'm running Woo 5.2.2.

[kbrown9]

Based on this comment about the cause of the Jetpack activation failure, I wonder if WCPay is loading a package class before the autoloader is aware that Jetpack is activated.

[waclawjacek]

@kbrown9:

I don't see a screen plugin install screen that shows WCPay and Jetpack in the onboarding flow. I'm running Woo 5.2.2.

On a fresh install, this should be displayed when you go to WooCommerce > Home. If it isn't, you can force going through the setup flow by going to WooCommerce > Products > Help (top right) > Setup wizard > Setup wizard.

The store details I am testing for are:

Test Street 123, Test City
US, California, 94110

[kbrown9]

I was able to reproduce the problem using the store details provide above.

Here's what's happening:

1. Woo's onboarding flow sends a request to activate woocommerce-payments and Jetpack, in that order (see this comment).
2. The two plugins are activated here, one after the other.
3. WooCommerce Payments activates first and loads the autoloader. The autoloader finds the packages associated with the currently active plugins and chooses the latest package versions. Note that Jetpack isn't active yet, so the autoloader doesn't look at it.
4. WooCommerce Payments loads a few connection package files right after activating.
5. Jetpack activates. Jetpack needs the latest connection package files, but an older version of those files was already loaded for WooCommerce Payments.

---

The problem is that the autoloader can't anticipate that Jetpack is about to be activated. WooCommerce could reorder the plugins so that Jetpack is activated first (which was tested in this comment), and that should fix the immediate problem. However, the problem could occur again if, for example, WC Pay was activated second and needed a newer version of the connection package.

The autoloader does attempt to identify activating plugins and treat them as active plugins here. It might be possible to intercept WooCommerce's plugin activation request and preemptively add the activating plugins to the active list.

[tammullen]

Is it possible to raise the priority of this? It impacts the critical flows of WooCommerce (Merchant Can go through Setup Wizard) and WC Pay (Merchant can Onboard via WooCommerce setup wizard).

cc:@kbrown9

[kbrown9]

Hi @tammullen! I have a PR in progress for this issue in #19634, and I've requested a review from @ObliviousHarmony on that PR. Also, I see that Woo has a PR in progress to change the WCPay/Jetpack activation order in this PR, which should fix the bug you're experiencing in the critical flows.