Fixing the Google Maps API “Server Rejected Your Request Error” in the Store Locator Plugin for WordPress

I have been successfully using this plugin for WordPress, Store Locator, to allow my clients to create maps and show their locations on said maps. Worked wonderfully on three different sites, until today I went to transfer one of those from my development environment to the client’s live site.

On loading the map page itself, I received this error:

The Google Maps API server rejected your request. The “sensor” parameter specified in the request must be set to either “true” or “false”.

Did some digging but to no avail. I also noticed I couldn’t update any settings in the backend, ie the Store Locator admin page in WordPress. So… I started fiddling and found a way to fix it. Here’s what I did.

  1. Went into PHPMyAdmin.
  2. Go into the wp_sl_setting table.
  3. Set the value of sl_vars to null.

I’m not a database expert by any means, and so am not entirely sure what all happened due to this, but the following results showed up:

  1. I no longer received the error on the front end.
  2. Most of my previous settings were somehow magically restored.
  3. I did have to manually uncheck a few boxes and change a few values to get them back to the original settings, but everything seems to be working from the front end.

Again, your mileage may vary and I’m certainly not opening myself up to be the lone supporter of this issue, but hopefully that’ll help get you a bit further along in your own attempts at fixing this one and only error I’ve ever experienced with an otherwise excellent plugin.

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