Okay, I found the problem by debugging the query. It was a generic LEFT JOIN added with the posts_join filter that has not alias the $wpdb->postmeta table which finally leads to the error. So the sorting is working now without problems.
I think the simplest, but not necessarily the most performant, would be using two WP_Query loops, one using $query->set( ‘post__in’, $product_ids_on_sale ); and other using $query->set( ‘post__not__in’, $product_ids_on_sale ); because these are mutually exclusive. One loop would be used for the main query and other for second loop as show in this example in the … Read more
Order column custom date using pre_get_posts
I realized the reason it doesn’t work: this function needs to be located in functions.php. Per WP code reference: pre_get_posts “Fires after the query variable object is created, but before the actual query is run.” Since I placed the function within an archive template, the main query had already fired, and was thus too late.
Instead of having $q->set( ‘posts_per_page’, 12 ) in the pre-get-posts function, I use the Read Settings ‘Blog pages show at most’ and that seemed to clear things up.
Sort by DESC works, ASC doesn’t?
pre_get_posts hook not targeting search results page query
Excluding posts from search results page with meta query not working
usually i’m typing a barcode or an sku number. so i’m fetching 1 result. when i’m not using this script the search results are taking about 2-3 seconds. this is my script: function cf_search_join( $join ) { global $wpdb; if ( is_search() ) { $join .=’ LEFT JOIN ‘.$wpdb->postmeta. ‘ ON ‘. $wpdb->posts . ‘.ID … Read more
Tax query get first product with attribute value in pre_get_posts