NOT LIKE does not work with JOIN in wordpress - php

Question

I have this sql query in wordpress with php
$sql = "SELECT last_update.post_id FROM {$wpdb->postmeta} last_update";
$sql .= " JOIN {$wpdb->posts} AS post ON last_update.post_id = post.ID";
$sql .= $wpdb->prepare(" WHERE {$time} - last_update.meta_value > {$ttl} AND last_update.meta_key = %s", Importer::META_LAST_UPDATE);
if (SyncConfig::getInstance()->option('published_only'))
$sql .= " AND post.post_status = 'publish'";
$sql .= $wpdb->prepare(" ORDER BY last_update.meta_value ASC LIMIT %d", self::getProductLimit());
$product_ids = $wpdb->get_col($sql);
shuffle($product_ids);
error_log(print_r( $product_ids, true ));
What I want is to skip the results with a "NOT LIKE" for the wildcard result "Product data not found"
Normally I would do something like this
$sql = "SELECT last_update.post_id FROM {$wpdb->postmeta} last_update";
$sql .= " JOIN {$wpdb->posts} AS post ON last_update.post_id = post.ID";
//QUITAR PRODUCTOS CON DATA NOT FOUND
$sql .= " JOIN {$wpdb->postmeta} AS _ety_product_info ON last_update.post_id = _ety_product_info.post_id";
$sql .= $wpdb->prepare(" WHERE {$time} - last_update.meta_value > {$ttl} AND last_update.meta_key = %s", Importer::META_LAST_UPDATE);
//QUITAR PRODUCTOS CON DATA NOT FOUND
$sql .= " AND _ety_product_info.meta_value NOT LIKE '%Product data not found%'";
if (SyncConfig::getInstance()->option('published_only'))
$sql .= " AND post.post_status = 'publish'";
$sql .= $wpdb->prepare(" ORDER BY last_update.meta_value ASC LIMIT %d", self::getProductLimit());
$product_ids = $wpdb->get_col($sql);
shuffle($product_ids);
error_log(print_r( $product_ids, true ));
But it gives wrong data.
The strangest thing is that if I remove the "NOT LIKE" and just leave it on "LIKE" it works delivering the expected result if the "_ety_product_info" column contains the value "Product data not found"
What am I doing wrong?
I want to exclude with "NOT LIKE" but it doesn't work.
Apparently this error only happens when I do the "JOIN"
Note: To identify the changes made in the original code with the edited one, just search for: //QUITAR PRODUCTOS CON DATA NOT FOUND
The final query
$sql it would be this:
SELECT last_update.post_id
FROM wp_postmeta last_update
JOIN wp_posts AS post ON last_update.post_id = post.ID
JOIN wp_postmeta AS _ety_product_info ON last_update.post_id = _ety_product_info.post_id
WHERE 1659698743 - last_update.meta_value > 86400
AND last_update.meta_key = '_ety_last_update'
AND _ety_product_info.meta_value NOT LIKE '%Product data not found%'
AND post.post_status = 'publish'
ORDER BY last_update.meta_value ASC LIMIT 17
I also tried this but it didn't work.
$wild = '%';
$find = 'Product data not found';
$like = $wild . $wpdb->esc_like( $find ) . $wild;
$sql .= $wpdb->prepare(" AND _ety_product_info.meta_value NOT LIKE %s", $like);

Answer 1

For what it's worth, the query you showed us says NOT LIKE 'Product data not found'. I guess you want it to say NOT LIKE '%Product data not found%' with the % wildcard characters.
And, try using LEFT JOIN and putting the NOT LIKE in your ON-condition. In general for readability with these key/value metadata tables it's a good idea to put the key selector in the ON condition. It doesn't matter to the logic for JOINs but it does for LEFT JOINs.
SELECT last_update.post_id
FROM wp_postmeta last_update
JOIN wp_posts AS post
ON last_update.post_id = post.ID
AND last_update.meta_key = '_ety_last_update'
LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta AS _ety_product_info
ON last_update.post_id = _ety_product_info.post_id
AND _ety_product_info.meta_value NOT LIKE '%Product data not found%'
WHERE 1659698743 - last_update.meta_value > 86400
AND post.post_status = 'publish'
ORDER BY last_update.meta_value ASC
LIMIT 17
This might work for you: JOIN suppresses the rows from the first table that don't match the second table, but LEFT JOIN keeps them.
This is guesswork. I don't know what other keys are in your metadata tables.