Deactivate plugin upon deactivation of another plugin

2 comments

1. Yes, register a deactivation hook in your first plugin, and inside this hook deactivate the 2nd plugin using the deactivate_plugins() function

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2. Note: After writing this, I submitted a trac ticket, only to be told that this one already existed.

   @OneTrickPony‘s answer didn’t work forme, and after inspecting the source (specifically deactivate_plugins()) I found why:

   Let’s suppose B depends on A, and A is deactivated by the user. WordPress calls deactivate_plugins(A).

   This function does the following:

   1. Gets all the current active plugins.]
   2. Performs some checks (e.g. is plugin A actually active?)
   3. Removes A from this array
   4. Fires the hook deactivate_A (which we hook onto using register_deactivation_hook)
   5. Updates the array to the database.

   Now at step 4, we call deactivate_plugins(B) to deactivate. The same process happens again, and is completed- that’s fine. But once that’s completed we proceed to step 5 (in the original deactivate_plugins() call for A). The array is updated to the database – but this array was the very original one retrieved in step 1 and only has A removed. In particular we retrieved it at the beginning when B was still active, and so it contains B.

   Note: your deactivation callbacks are fired, even through WordPress still thinks its active next time the page loads.

   The solution

   The solution is to use a later hook (after the option has been updated). For this we can take advantage of the update_option_{$option} hook:

   //This goes inside Plugin A.
   //When A is deactivated. Deactivate B.
     register_deactivation_hook(__FILE__,'my_plugin_A_deactivate'); 
     function my_plugin_A_deactivate(){
        $dependent = 'B/B.php';
        if( is_plugin_active($dependent) ){
             add_action('update_option_active_plugins', 'my_deactivate_dependent_B');
        }
      }
   
      function my_deactivate_dependent_B(){
          $dependent = 'B/B.php';
          deactivate_plugins($dependent);
      }
   

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