Multisite not allowed on WoA but users can access Network Setup Tool menu item

[Nic-Sevic]

Quick summary

sharing here from: p9F6qB-cOd-p2 @miksansegundo

WordPress.com doesn’t support multisite as noted in the FAQs section on the PHP Environment support page.

However, customers can add define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true ); to the file wp-config.php which shows the option Network Setup Tool in their admin:

The tool invites them to “Create a Network of WordPress Sites” with the message “Warning: Please deactivate your plugins before enabling the Network feature.”

Following this warning, customers try it and contact support when they realize they cannot disable Akismet and Jetpack plugins. example: 6547006-zen

proposed solution Instead, can we either show a message on the Network Setup screen /wp-admin/network.php to inform customers that WordPress.com doesn’t support multisite or hide this menu option for WoA sites?

Steps to reproduce

1. SFTP or SSH in to WoA site
2. add define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true ); to wp-config file
3. on site dash go to Tools > Network Setup

What you expected to happen

User should either be informed that multisite not supported or sidebar option should be hidden

What actually happened

it looks like you can create a multisite and nothing to indicate you can't until you try to deactivate akismet/jetpack

Impact

Some (< 50%)

Available workarounds?

No but the platform is still usable

Platform (Simple and/or Atomic)

Atomic

Logs or notes

No response

[github-actions[bot]]

Support References

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• [ ] 6547006-zen

[dpasque]

I think we can bump this down to Normal given the narrower scope, and that it's more about preventing bad setup.

• Bumping down to Normal.
• Putting on triage board and sending to YOLO. 👍