Set update plugins transient to object instead of null

[Crabcyborg]

I don't really know how to run this directly, this is pretty deep in EDD code, but I believe this shouldn't have any issues.

Related to https://secure.helpscout.net/conversation/1694625984/85305?folderId=4324209

If I have woocommerce installed and I run the following snippet:

set_site_transient( 'update_plugins', null );

PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Attempt to assign property "translations" on null in /var/www/src/wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/includes/admin/helper/class-wc-helper-updater.php:81
Stack trace:
#0 /var/www/src/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(305): WC_Helper_Updater::transient_update_plugins(NULL)
#1 /var/www/src/wp-includes/plugin.php(189): WP_Hook->apply_filters(NULL, Array)
#2 /var/www/src/wp-includes/option.php(1977): apply_filters('pre_set_site_tr...', NULL, 'update_plugins')
#3 /var/www/src/wp-content/plugins/code-snippets/php/snippet-ops.php(446) : eval()'d code(12): set_site_transient('update_plugins', NULL)
#4 /var/www/src/wp-content/plugins/code-snippets/php/snippet-ops.php(446): eval()
#5 /var/www/src/wp-content/plugins/code-snippets/php/snippet-ops.php(534): execute_snippet('/*\r\n$updates ...', 185)
#6 /var/www/src/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(03): execute_active_snippets('')
#7 /var/www/src/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(327): WP_Hook->apply_filters(NULL, Array)
#8 /var/www/src/wp-includes/plugin.php(470): WP_Hook->do_action(Array)
#9 /var/www/src/wp-settings.php(441): do_action('plugins_loaded')
#10 /var/www/wp-config.php(73): require_once('/var/www/src/wp...')
#11 /var/www/src/wp-load.php(55): require_once('/var/www/wp-con...')
#12 /var/www/src/wp-admin/admin.php(34): require_once('/var/www/src/wp...')
#13 {main}
thrown in /var/www/src/wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/includes/admin/helper/class-wc-helper-updater.php on line 81
[12-Nov-2021 14:28:03 UTC] PHP Notice: is_embed was called incorrectly. Conditional query tags do not work before the query is run. Before then, they always return false. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 3.1.0.) in /var/www/src/wp-includes/functions.php on line 5663
[12-Nov-2021 14:28:03 UTC] PHP Notice: is_search was called incorrectly. Conditional query tags do not work before the query is run. Before then, they always return false. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 3.1.0.) in /var/www/src/wp-includes/functions.php on line 5663

However this snippet:

$updates               = new stdClass();
$updates->last_checked = 0;
$updates->response     = array();
$updates->translations = array();
$updates->no_update    = array();
$updates->checked      = array();
set_site_transient( 'update_plugins', $updates );

Runs just fine.

In woocommerce, in WC_Helper_Updater::transient_update_plugins it has this line:

$transient->translations = array_merge( isset( $transient->translations ) ? $transient->translations : array(), $translations );

There are also a few lines above that could be problematic as well:

if ( version_compare( $plugin['Version'], $data['version'], '<' ) ) {
	$transient->response[ $filename ] = (object) $item;
	unset( $transient->no_update[ $filename ] );
} else {
	$transient->no_update[ $filename ] = (object) $item;
	unset( $transient->response[ $filename ] );
}

It really expects that the transient is an object. This is really more of a bug with woocommerce expecting data that could definitely be something else, but it's something we can fix on our end.

I borrowed most of this code from WordPress, see https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_update_plugins/

[codecov]

Codecov Report

Merging #622 (5692848) into master (be4a777) will decrease coverage by 0.00%.
The diff coverage is 0.00%.

@@             Coverage Diff              @@
##             master     #622      +/-   ##
============================================
- Coverage     27.40%   27.40%   -0.01%     
  Complexity     6292     6292              
============================================
  Files            90       90              
  Lines         17364    17370       +6     
============================================
+ Hits           4759     4760       +1     
- Misses        12605    12610       +5     

Impacted Files	Coverage Δ
classes/models/FrmAddon.php	5.91% <0.00%> (-0.11%)	⬇️
classes/helpers/FrmAppHelper.php	29.74% <0.00%> (+0.07%)	⬆️

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[stephywells]

Nice find! Weird that WooCommerce has this issue when it would conflict with so many plugins. I'm seeing the "null" all over the place when I do a Google search...