Release v13.40.2

Pollora 13.40: pollora new finishes with the E-commerce template

On a first install, pollora new stopped with an arsort() error as soon as the E-commerce template activated WooCommerce, then exited with an error after building the theme. 13.40.1 and 13.40.2 activate plugins and theme in a fresh process, and the install ends with its success message.

Olivier Gorzalka

November 6, 2026 2 min read

pollora new with the E-commerce template (pollora/theme-apiary) stopped with arsort(): Argument #1 ($array) must be of type array, null given, on a fresh project, every time. The issue, opened by bale-ad, came with the stack trace, the cause and the symptoms on two fresh projects: thank you. 13.40.1 fixed the first crash, 13.40.2 the second one behind it. Both come from the same place.

13.40.0, on 4 November, only moves the framework to Laravel 13.40 (illuminate/* ^13.40).

What failed

On a first install, pollora:make:theme runs in the process that has just installed WordPress. That process is only partly loaded (SHORTINIT): no plugins_loaded, no init. Two calls the install made there cannot work in it.

Activating the plugins the theme requires. The E-commerce template requires WooCommerce. activate_plugin() called plugin_basename(), which ran arsort() on a value WordPress had not set yet. The install stopped before the theme build, with WooCommerce, the theme and its assets all missing.
Activating the theme. Once the first crash was gone, switch_theme() failed with Call to undefined function wp_set_template_globals(). The theme was active, the install exited with code 1 and never printed its success message.

What changed

Each activation now runs in a fresh process, where WordPress loads completely and the activation hooks run:

pollora:plugin:activate (13.40.1) takes plugins as paths relative to the plugins directory, such as woocommerce/woocommerce.php.
pollora:theme:activate (13.40.2) takes a theme by its directory name.

Both refuse to run when WordPress is not fully loaded, and you can call them yourself, for example in a deploy script.

If an activation process fails, the install carries on and prints the command to run afterwards: wp plugin activate <slug> or wp theme activate <name>. A failure there no longer costs you the theme build or the success message.

Upgrade

composer update

A project that is already installed has nothing to migrate: the change only affects pollora new and the commands it calls. If a first install ended in an error before, create the project again with pollora new, or activate what it left inactive:

wp plugin activate woocommerce
wp theme activate shop