Avoid re-running full plugin init during activation

[utkarshcloudinary]

Summary

Utils::install() — registered as both the activation hook and the cloudinary_version_upgrade handler — unconditionally called get_plugin_instance()->init(). On the version-upgrade path this re-ran the plugin metadata bootstrap out of sequence (after Plugin::init() had already run on the init hook), which can destabilise plugin load order for the request — e.g. triggering other plugins such as ACF to initialise too early.

This was observed on an enterprise customer site (WP 7.0 / PHP 8.2, ACF Pro 6.8.3): for ~5 minutes after activating Cloudinary 3.3.3, frontend requests fataled with Call to undefined function have_rows() in their ACF-dependent theme, alongside a flood of _load_textdomain_just_in_time notices for the acf domain. The fatals correlate exclusively with the post-activation window across two weeks of logs.

Change

Only call ->init() when $plugin->version is not yet populated:

• Fresh activation (wp-admin / WP-CLI): the plugin file is included during activation, after the init hook has fired, so version is empty → fallback ->init() runs as before. No behaviour change.
• cloudinary_version_upgrade (init prio 100): Plugin::init() (init prio 10) has already populated version → the redundant re-bootstrap is skipped. This is the destabilising path.

Everything downstream of install() (get_table_sql, table_installed, dbDelta branch, upgrade_install and the upgrade_3_x methods) depends only on $plugin->version, which the guard guarantees.

Notes

• The customer's root defect is theme-side (unguarded have_rows() calls); this change removes the plugin's contribution to out-of-sequence bootstrapping — defensive hardening that benefits any site with load-order-sensitive plugins.
• Not yet reproduced end-to-end on staging; marking as draft until validated.

Testing

• Fresh activation via wp-admin creates the relationship table (empty-version fallback path)
• Fresh activation via WP-CLI
• Version upgrade path (cloudinary_version_upgrade) runs upgrade sequence without re-running init()
• Staging reproduction with ACF Pro + ACF-dependent theme: no early-ACF notices / fatals after activation