Comment count sync

[jtbayly]

I’m having trouble that I assume is related to these errors in the WP-Discourse log:

[2025-08-14 20:28:35] comment.ERROR: sync_comments.response_error {"message":"","discourse_topic_id":"2464","wp_post_id":20434,"http_code":""}
[2025-08-14 20:36:04] comment.ERROR: sync_comments.response_error {"message":"","discourse_topic_id":"727","wp_post_id":12097,"http_code":""}

But there is no message about why it failed to sync, so I’m not sure what to do to debug this.

I just left a comment myself and I see this in the log:

[2025-08-15 18:44:39] comment.INFO: sync_comments.success {"post_id":22491}

That post now shows correctly that there is one comment up at the top of the page in the meta-data.

However, at the bottom of the page it still says “Start the discussion at …” instead of “Join the discussion” even though there is a comment now.

Anybody have any suggestions?

I do have “Only Import Moderator-Liked” selected, but I believe that should only affect which comments are displayed, not the wording or the comment count, correct?

[angus (Angus McLeod)]

Hey @jtbayly, thanks for the report. I’m trying to understand what you see as the issue here. Here’s what seems to be the case based on what you’ve said:

1. Publishing posts from Wordpress to Discourse is working properly.
2. You have the Sync Comment Data Webhook setup (is that right?).
3. You have “Only Import Moderator Liked” enabled.
4. You are seeing some sync comment errors in the logs.
5. When you reply to a post published from Wordpress in Discourse you are seeing the comment count increase but you are not seeing the post appear in Wordpress.

If you ignore the logs for a moment, could you explain what you expect to happen and how the current state diverges from your expectation.

[jtbayly]

Sorry I probably over complicated my last message with details.

Generally the comment count doesn’t seem to be increasing from 0. I don’t actually display any comments on WP.

[angus (Angus McLeod)]

I see! Do you have the Sync Comment Data webhook setup?

Configure WP Discourse Webhooks

You can use webhooks to sync data between Discourse and WordPress, and enrich your integration. Reply to this topic if you have questions about how to setup the webhooks, or how they work. Setup WP Discourse First setup an endpoint in WP Discourse: Navigate to WP Discourse > Webhooks in Wordpress admin. Select the endpoint(s) you want to enable (see below). Set a “Webhook Secret Key”, if it’s not already set. Click “Save Options”. Discourse Then create a new Webhook in Discourse (Go to /admi…

[jtbayly]

Yes, I do. And I turned on “Verbose Webhook Logs” in WP-Discourse. Interestingly, since then, I’ve had no failures in the logs, but it’s still not working. Here is the most recent entry:

[2025-08-19 00:01:11] comment.INFO: sync_comments.success {"post_id":30298} 

However, take that post as an example. Post 30298 in WP has:

1. Been posted to Discourse automatically by WP-Discourse, thus creating a topic for it.
2. In Discourse, there has been a post created under that topic.
3. The comment data has been sent to WP by Discourse via Webhook, and WP-Discourse logged that it was successfully received
4. Whether logged in or not, cleared caches or not, post 30298 in WP reports zero comments.

Thoughts?

[angus (Angus McLeod)]

Could you link me to an example post where the logs say the comment sync succeeded?

[angus (Angus McLeod)]

Just a note that @jtbayly kindly shared an example with me via a PM and I’ve taken a closer look at this. @jtbayly I think what you’re seeing is expected behaviour. You have “Only Import Moderator Liked” enabled and the display of comments, including the display of the comment count, are controlled by the filter settings you apply to comments. Unless I’m mistaken, essentially what you want is:

• No actual comments to be imported.
• Just the comment count to display next to the link to the corresponding topic.

In which case I think the configuration you want is to set “Enable Discourse Comments” to “Display a link to the comments”. You should then disable “Only Import Moderator Liked”.

[jtbayly]

Thank you for your help, @angus. It does appear changing those settings fixed it. I guess I was confused.

Here is how I assumed it worked:

1. Comments that were imported would display under the post in WP.
2. Comment count would include all of the replies to a topic in Discourse.

I had that selected because eventually I was hoping to get around to actually displaying the mod-liked comments below posts. But I guess that’s not possible along with showing the total number of replies to a topic?