Posted in WordPress by
Anthony Hortin

I had an interesting* issue with Gravity Forms today. I needed to check out some settings on a client site, but when I tried to edit the form, or any of the settings pages, such as the Confirmations or Notifications pages, I received a popup notification advising that the form was currently locked. Not only couldn't I edit the form, but I couldn't even view any of the other settings pages either.

My first instinct was to go to Google, but unfortunately, I couldn't find any solutions. There was nothing in the Gravity Forms documentation either and since their forums haven't been used for ages now, they're mostly useless as well. Deactivating and reactivating the plugin didn't work and neither did logging the user out of all their sessions (using the Log out Everywhere button on the users profile page). In the end, I resorted to phpMyAdmin.

After you access phpMyAdmin (usually through cPanel or your hosting control panel), browse the wp_options table and then click the Search tab at the top of the screen. Enter in %_GFCache_% for the option_name field and then click Go. You should be returned one or more rows of data (each transient uses two rows. One for the transient data and one for the expiration). Simply delete these transients using the delete link that phpMyAdmin  gives you for each row. You should then find that your form is unlocked and you'll be able to edit it.

Gravity Forms TransientsAs a side note, when I couldn't find any solutions online, I sent Gravity Forms Support an email asking them how to resolve the issue. I ended up resolving it myself before they got back to me but they did advise that from version 1.9.13.8 they've added the ability to purge the transients used by Gravity Forms by deactivating and then reactivating the plugin. I was using v1.9.13 and the WordPress Dashboard was advising me that all my plugins were up to date.

So, if deactivating and then reactivating the plugin doesn't work for you, give this option a go. And as a precaution, it's probably a good idea to take a backup of your data before you start playing around with the database.

*I say interesting but I mean annoying. Really, really annoying!

 

36 responses on “Unlocking a locked Gravity Form”

    1. Anthony Hortin Post author

      Hey Ben. That’s good to know. I’d already fixed my client site by the time they’d told me about this new change so I couldn’t test to see if it actually worked. And since WordPress was telling me that my plugin was up to date, I presumed I was running the latest version. I know they did mention that they haven’t been able to work out the exact reason for issue but they suspect it was when core did a database update for 4.3 as that’s when they started receiving similar reports to the one I submitted. I do know that others have mentioned having this issue long before 4.3 though, so not sure how accurate their suspicions are. Thanks for leaving a comment.

  3. Joe

    This this helped alot. Seems like an ongoing problem that is not getting fixed. It would be great if they just added an option to not use this feature.

  4. Dorian Speed

    Thank you for this tutorial – I was having the exact same problem. I did try deactivating/reactivating a couple of times, complete with resetting permalinks, but that didn’t work. Hopefully they’ll have this sorted out soon.

  5. Rosie Taylor

    Definitely saved my bacon too! I’m using up to date Gravity forms. Tried activating/deactivating too and ended up using your PHP MyAdmin solution. Thanks so much for posting/sharing this! At first I was thinking my client or his VA was logged in and never logged out.

    1. Anthony Hortin Post author

      Glad it helped you out Rosie. It seems to be affecting quite a few people. I really hope Gravity Forms sort this issue out soon. Thanks for leaving a comment.

  6. Daniel

    I had the same exact issue, and came to the same conclusion. However I used a transient plugin to delete the GF transient’s. (instead of going to the db) That solved the issue. I am wondering if the issue happens once you move the site to different servers? I don’t have this issue on sites that have been live for a while, but I see it on sites that are currently in development.

    I contacted GF about this issue but haven’t heard back. It’s weird, but this is the only post I was able to find having this issue. I thought I would find a lot more results in google.

    Thanks,

    1. Anthony Hortin Post author

      Interesting point about happening on sites that have been moved. I know the site that I had issues with was moved recently, although it was a few months ago now. And yeah, I didn’t find much in Google either and yet I heard quite a few people say that they’ve had this issue as well. That was one of the reasons that prompted me to write this post, with the hope that it might help others who have this issue.

  7. Simon Kelly

    Nice one Anthony! Bit of a weird issue, definitely more annoying than interesting. Cheers heaps for the fix!

  8. Nick Routsong

    I too have been running into this… thanks for the post. I went ahead and installed the Transient Cleaner plugin, and cleared the transients. That did the trick. Thanks!

  9. Jo Marshall

    Having the same problem. I tried the phpMyAdmin solution, which cleared a number of transients. However, I still couldn’t update the plugin, even after deactivating/reactivating and turning off the cache. The Transient Cleaner plugin found a few more transients. Once those were cleared, I was able to update. These posts were enormously helpful – I hadn’t heard of transients, and was totally at sea. Thanks everyone!

  11. Tom Nguyen

    Thanks a bunch for providing this! Gravity Forms never got back with me, and your blog post was the first one to show up when I typed in the Gravity Forms locked message.

  12. Ricardo Andres

    The notes of the latest update (1.9.14) say they fixed the issue. I didn’t get to test it because I used the Transient Cleaner plugin beforehand and it is not occurring again.

    1. Anthony Hortin Post author

      Fingers crossed it actually works this time. They told me they added functionality to flush the transients back in version 1.9.13.8, but it never worked.

  13. Terri Orlowski

    Thanks for this. Have been running into this problem for several days even though we were all logging out. Wish they’d fix whatever was causing this, or add a check in button or something, but glad to have found this in the mean time.

    Where is this Flush Transients option suppossed to be? I have 1.9.15 and don’t see that option.

    Cheers!
    Terri

    1. Anthony Hortin Post author

      Hi Terri. Glad my Post helped. They’ve supposedly added a feature when you activate the plugin, to flush the transients, so try deactivating and reactivating Gravity Forms to see if it helps.

  15. Kevin Pryce

    I thought I had an up to date Gravity Form plugin. After using Transient Cleaner, it turned out my plugin was out of date. Transient cleaner allowed me to update the plugin and unlocked the form.