ACF form submit fails to create a new WordPress post

• marty14

• August 7, 2023 at 11:03 am

I’m trying to use ACF Pro to create a form that people can submit, which should then create a draft post.

The ACF Field Group is there and renders on the page.
Upon submitting the form, it does display a positive confirmation message but no post has been created.
What am I doing wrong?

I have created a custom theme with the following file:

<?php
	acf_form_head();
	get_header();
?>

<div id="content">
	<div class="wrap">
		<form id='post' class='acf-form' action='' method='post'>

			<?php
				acf_form([
				'field_groups'    => ['group_5***d'],
				'post_id'         => 'new_post',
				'post_title'      => false,
				'post_content'    => false,
		    		'post_category'   => 'academy',
				'form'            => false,
			    	'submit_value' 	  => __("Submit post", 'acf'),
			    	'updated_message' => __("Thank you!", 'acf'),
				'html_updated_message' => '<div id="message" class="updated"><p>%s</p></div>'
				]);

				if(current_user_can('activate_plugins')) {
					acf_form([
						'field_groups'  => ['group_5***b'],
						'post_id'       => 'new_post',
						'post_category' => 'academy',
						'form'          => false
					]);
				}
			?>

			<div class="acf-form-submit">
				<input type="submit" class="acf-button" value="Submit post">
				<span class="acf-spinner"></span>
			</div>

		</form>
	</div>
</div>

<?php get_footer();

And I have the following code snippet:

function savePostsAsAcademyDraft($post_id) {
	$term = get_term_by('slug', 'academy', 'category');
	wp_update_post([
		'ID' => $post_id,
		'post_status' => 'draft',
		'post_category' => [/*$term->id*/3]
	]);
	return $post_id;
}
add_filter('acf/pre_save_post' , 'savePostsAsAcademyDraft', 10, 1);

• John Huebner

• August 11, 2023 at 3:15 pm

I don’t know why it’s not working, but here are some problems with your code that may or may not be causing issues.

Instead of using 2 acf_form() calls you should have only one and construct the field groups to be included before you call acf_form()

$field_groups = array('group_5***d');
if (current_user_can('activate_plugins')) {
  $field_groups[] = 'group_5***b';
}

// in your acf_form() call

....
'field_groups' => $field_groups;
....

Doing the above will also eliminate the need to call acf_form() with 'form' => false

There is no post_category argument for acf_form()
To set post values use the argument “new_post”

.....
'post_id' => 'new_post',
'new_post' => array(
   // wp_insert_post() arguments here
   // https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_insert_post/
),

With the above in place there will be no need to get the term and set it in your acf/pre_save_post filter. You should be able to set it to draft by supplying just the ID and status to wp_update_post()

Another issue you might be having is not supplying a post title. Even if you do not supply a post title field in the form you should be setting something here and include it in the new_post argument array. WP has been know to have issue when a post is saved without a title.

https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/acf_form/

• marty14

• August 23, 2023 at 7:56 pm

Thank you John,

I have simplified my code to the one below. However, upon form submit the WordPress site crashes. Is there anything wrong with this code?

<?php
    acf_form_head();
    get_header();
?>

<div id="content">
    <div class="wrap">
        <form id='post' class='acf-form' action='' method='post'>

            <?php
                $field_groups = array('group_596925d98777d');
                acf_form([
                    'field_groups'  => $field_groups,
                    'post_id'       => 'new_post',
                    'new_post'      => array(
                        'post_category' => 'academy',
                        'post_status'   => 'draft',
                        'post_title'    => $post_id,
                     ),                  
                    'post_content'  => false,
                    'form'          => false,
                    'submit_value'  => __("Submit post", 'acf'),
                    'updated_message' => __("Thank you!", 'acf'),
                    'html_updated_message' => '<div id="message" class="updated" style="display:block;"><p>%s</p></div>'
                ]);
            ?>

        </form>

    </div>
</div>

<?php get_footer();