Safe Mode

Use Safe Mode in Jetpack to prevent issues when switching between development, staging, and production environments. Ensure continuity and prevent an “Identity Crisis” by maintaining consistent site data.

You can also prevent losing your production site data by mistake by using the WP environment variable.

Identity crisis explained

In short, an “Identity Crisis” happens when changing a URL causes Jetpack to create a new ID instead of updating the old one, leading to an apparent loss of valuable historical data and subscriber information.

When a website using Jetpack connects to WordPress.com, it receives a unique ID and token tied to the site URL. This ID functions much like a username and password, identifying the site within our system. The ID is important because it keeps track of data like site stats and subscriber lists.

Problems can occur if the site’s URL changes. Ideally, the system should update the existing blog ID with the new URL, keeping all historical data connected to the site. But sometimes the system sometimes doesn’t recognize the new URL as an updated address for the same site, or a site with multiple domains. Instead, it treats the new URL as a completely different site and assigns a new ID.

This causes an “Identity Crisis.” The original site’s data—such as site statistics, visitor counts, and subscriber information—stay linked to the old ID and appear to be lost. The new ID starts tracking from zero, making it seem that the site’s history has been erased. This is a problem for site administrators who rely on consistent tracking of site performance and audience engagement.

How Safe Mode helps

Safe mode helps prevent these problems before they start.

There are several cases where your Jetpack-enabled site’s URL could change:

• Updating to a new domain.
• Cloning a site from production to staging.
• Using multiple URLs for the same installation.
• Any other scenario where the URL of your site might change.

In most cases, we can safely update the URL and not cause an Identity Crisis. But, there are a handful of cases where we’re not able to automatically determine whether we should update the URL in our data caches.

In these cases, Jetpack takes some extra steps to make sure that we’re not causing an Identity Crisis:

• We don’t allow syncing any more information from the Jetpack-enabled site to the WordPress.com caches.
• We begin displaying the Jetpack Safe Mode notice.
• We continue showing that notice until an admin of your site resolves the potential Identity Crisis.

Safe Mode notice and actions

Safe Node Notice:

When the notice is first displayed, you’ll see something like this:

Looking at the above screenshot, there are three actions you can take:

1. Stay in Safe Mode:
   • Use when cloning for testing.
   • Keeps the site in Safe Mode and hides the notice.
   • The “Jetpack Safe Mode” button in the admin bar reopens the dialog if needed.
2. Move your settings:
   • Use when replacing an old URL with a new one (e.g., moving from a development to a production environment).
   • Migrates stats and subscribers to the new URL.
   • The notice disappears after migration is complete.
3. Create a fresh connection:
   • Use when creating a new, separate site.
   • Starts a new Jetpack connection process for the new site.
   • Redirects to WordPress.com for authorization.
   • Useful for full Jetpack functionality on a development site.

Safe Mode and Staging Mode

Jetpack’s Staging Mode is for sites known to be in a staging environment. When enabled:

• Staging sites do not pass data to WordPress.com or Jetpack.
• Prevents conflicts with the production site.

If a staging site is not set correctly, Safe Mode will be triggered.

Summary

• Safe Mode: Prevents data loss when changing site URLs and offers options to manage these changes.
• Staging Mode: Ensures staging sites are unable to take over the production site data.

Safe Mode and Staging Mode helps maintain site integrity and avoid an Identity Crisis during transitions between different environments.