Trying to Remove Peculiar Query String - wordpress

Question

I have a wordpress site using the W3 cache plugin with MaxCDN and Cloudlfare. I ran a few different speed tests and one common suggestion is to "Remove query strings from static resources". I download a plugin and cleared my cache everywhere but still got this message.
function vmf_remove_script_version( $src ) {
if ( strpos( $src, 'ver=' ) ) {
$src = remove_query_arg( 'ver', $src );
}
return $src;
}
add_filter( 'script_loader_src', 'vmf_remove_script_version', 15, 1 );
add_filter( 'style_loader_src', 'vmf_remove_script_version', 15, 1 );
After some closer inspection, turns out all the files the speedtests refer to end in ?x81224 (of which there's 50+ files). So I modified the code to the below but still no fix!
function remove_cssjs_ver( $src ) {
if( strpos( $src, '?ver=' ) ) {
$src = remove_query_arg( 'ver', $src );
}elseif( strpos( $src, '?x' ) ) {
$src = str_replace('?x81224','',$src);
//remove_query_arg( 'x', $src ); <- thought this wouldn't work because there's no = sign
}
return $src;
}
add_filter( 'style_loader_src', 'remove_cssjs_ver', 10, 2 );
add_filter( 'script_loader_src', 'remove_cssjs_ver', 10, 2 );
Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can fix this?

Answer 1

First of all it is NOT a good idea to remove the ?ver=... query argument. This version is usually static and should only be updated if you change a script.
Your clients save scripts in their local browser history as well as caching Plugins may save this scripts server side. If the version is updated properly the new scripts are delivered. If you remove the ver query argument outdated scripts will be delivered to your clients (maybe for a long time) which causes a lot of troubles and client complaints. Don't do it.
Furthermore there are two problems I recognize with your script:
1) The remove filter priority should be latest so that it is not overwritten by other Plugins therefore set argument 4 to 100 (https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/add_filter/)
function remove_cssjs_ver( $src ) {
if( strpos( $src, '?x' ) ) {
$src = str_replace('?x81224','',$src);
}
return $src;
}
add_filter( 'style_loader_src', 'remove_cssjs_ver', 100, 2 );
add_filter( 'script_loader_src', 'remove_cssjs_ver', 100, 2 );
2) Where does ?x81224 come from? Find the Plugin/Function which creates this strange appendix and find out why. It looks like a custom made idea as replacement for the "ver" query argument.
In general I would say it is not a good idea to remove the query strings from static resources as usually there is a good reason for those. Do not know why they recommend it. If the file is cached with query string it will not slow down the site (or at least I can not think of a reason why).