Feed preview ignores the campaign Feed Order selection

Summary

The feed preview does not reflect the campaign's selected Feed Order. The preview is expected to show entries in the chosen chronological or original order, but it uses the same fixed ordering regardless of the saved selection. This makes the preview unreliable for validating which entries a limited import is intended to process.

Customer context

Product / area: Feedzy RSS Feeds, feed preview for an import workflow
Version: Not provided; the behavior is present in current source through v5.2.9
Environment: WordPress environment details not provided
Integration / third party: Dozens of RSS sources were reportedly tested
Reported error / symptom: Preview order remains unchanged when Feed Order is changed
Impact: The customer cannot validate the intended newest-ten selection in preview

Reproduction notes

1. Configure a Feedzy import workflow against a feed with known publication timestamps.
2. Select one Feed Order value and inspect the feed preview.
3. Select a different Feed Order value and inspect the preview again.
4. Observe that the preview order remains unchanged.

The fixed preview option is repository-confirmed; the exact customer preview screen was not available for runtime verification.

Diagnosis

Conclusion

The inspected preview path constructs shortcode attributes with a fixed date_desc sort value and does not read the campaign's persisted import_order. This directly explains why changing Feed Order does not alter the preview. The staff response independently confirms that the preview ignores the setting.

Where this likely occurs

• Preview construction: includes/admin/feedzy-rss-feeds-admin.php — Feedzy_Rss_Feeds_Admin::render_feed_preview() lines 997–1024 hard-codes sort to date_desc, fetches items, and slices the first five.
• Preview presentation: includes/admin/feedzy-rss-feeds-admin.php — Feedzy_Rss_Feeds_Admin::render_feed_preview() lines 1026–1042 labels the fixed result as the latest feed items.
• Campaign persistence boundary: includes/admin/feedzy-rss-feeds-import.php — Feedzy_Rss_Feeds_Import::run_job_logic() lines 1880–1902 supplies import_order only to the actual import options.
• History: commit 5a09533836f1a4708c6c1ab7ee09924905665448 introduced the preview with the fixed sort value; the first containing release is v5.1.0. The fixed value remains in v5.2.9.

Engineering notes

The preview and import use the shared feed-fetching pipeline but construct different option sets. The preview is owned by the free plugin. The available screenshot was not returned by the sanctioned image tool, so the exact preview screen used by the customer could not be visually verified; the transcript and staff confirmation align with the inspected fixed-sort preview path.

Test coverage status

No relevant preview-order coverage was found during inspection. tests/test-plugin.php — Test_Feedzy_Plugin::test_shortcode_order_param() lines 81–117 covers title sorting outside the preview. tests/test-import.php — Test_Feedzy_Import::test_feedzy_imports() beginning at line 63 does not compare preview order with campaign metadata.

What to verify or explore next

• Reproduce preview output with a deterministic RSS fixture after selecting each campaign Feed Order value.
• Confirm whether the customer's UI reaches Feedzy_Rss_Feeds_Admin::render_feed_preview() or another preview surface.
• Compare preview output and the resulting import for the same saved campaign.
• Check the relevant PHPUnit and E2E suites with preview chronology assertions.

Unknowns / follow-up

The precise preview surface is not visible in the text transcript, and the ticket image was unavailable through the sanctioned image endpoint. The installed Feedzy version is also unknown.

Confidence

Confidence: 92/100

Repository inspection directly confirms that the campaign UI maps newest-first to an ascending date comparator, and that the preview path supplies a fixed sort value instead of the saved campaign selection. No matching open issue was found.

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Source: HelpScout #3452624552
Generated by bug-report-triage (ID: bug-report-triage_6aaa5ab4e62834.92507993)