Meta box values not displaying in Post Edit Screen after save

Question

I added a Custom Post Type and fields. But when I enter values and save, they do not show up in the Wordpress edit screen.

 <?php
 add_action( 'init', 'create_post_type' );
 function create_post_type() {

 $supports = array('title', 'editor', 'thumbnail');

 register_post_type( 'acme_property',
    array(
            'labels' => array(
            'name' => __( 'Properties' ),
            'singular_name' => __( 'Property' ),
            'search_items' => __( 'Search Properties' ),
            'not_found' => __( 'No Properties found' )
        ),
    'public' => true,
    'has_archive' => true,
    'supports' => $supports
    )
   );
 }

 add_action('add_meta_boxes', 'add_property');

function add_property(){
    add_meta_box("property-meta", "Property Info", "meta_options", "acme_property", "side", "low");
}

function meta_options(){
    global $post;
    $values = get_post_custom($post->ID);
    $Prop_ID = isset( $values['property_id'] ) ? esc_attr( $values['property_id'][0] ) : '';
    $address = isset( $values['address'] ) ? esc_attr( $values['address'][0] ) : ''; 
?>
    <p>
    <label>Property #: </label><br/><input name="property_id" value="<?php echo $Prop_ID; ?>" />
    </p>
    <p>
    <label>Address:</label><br/><textarea name="address" cols="22" rows="3" value="<?php echo $address; ?>"></textarea>
    </p>
 <?php
}

 add_action( 'save_post', 'property_save' );

 function property_save( $post_id )
 {
// Bail if we're doing an auto save
if( defined( 'DOING_AUTOSAVE' ) && DOING_AUTOSAVE ) return;

// if our nonce isn't there, or we can't verify it, bail
if( !isset( $_POST['meta_box_nonce'] ) || !wp_verify_nonce( $_POST['meta_box_nonce'], 'my_meta_box_nonce' ) ) return;

// if our current user can't edit this post, bail
if( !current_user_can( 'edit_post' ) ) return;

// now we can actually save the data
$allowed = array(
        'a' => array( // on allow a tags
        'href' => array() // and those anchors can only have href attribute
    )
);

// Make sure your data is set before trying to save it
if( isset( $_POST['property_id'] ) )
    update_post_meta( $post_id, 'property_id', wp_kses( $_POST['property_id'], $allowed ) );

if( isset( $_POST['address'] ) )
    update_post_meta( $post_id, 'address', esc_attr( $_POST['address'] ) );

 }

Answer 1

It seems the problem might be that you haven't added a nonce - so when the post is being saved, you are failing the nonce check.

Try adding

 <?php wp_nonce_field('my_meta_box_nonce','meta_box_nonce'); ?>

to your metabox. Remember the nonce action (in this case my_meta_box_nonce) should be

• unique to the action (saving a property),
• unique to an object (e.g. the property's ID),
• and unique to your (your plug-in name).

Also - for these types of debugging questions use var_dump and wp_die to output variables and kill the processing (for instance, in your save_property function to see if that function is being called / where the function is aborted).

Not related to you original question, but you should use get_post_meta rather than get_post_custom.

Finally, I don't think you want to use wp_kses for the property ID. This is an expensive function, intended to strip out some HTML tags but allow others. If the ID is just a number, use intval or sanitize_key for alpha-numerics.