Cannot select signup_meta upon multisite user activation

Question

I am having trouble selecting signup meta, it always returns empty array.

My code is:

add_action( 'wpmu_activate_user', 'promote_to_admin', 99 );
function promote_to_admin( $user_id, $password, $meta ) {
    global $wpdb;
    $user = get_userdata( $user_id );
    $email = $user->user_email;
    var_dump( $email );
    $signup_meta = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT meta FROM wp_signups WHERE user_email = $email" );
    if ( $signup_meta['new_role'] == 'administrator' ) {
        $user->set_role( 'administrator' );
    }
}

$signup_meta is returned as an empty array. However, when I check the database, the signup_meta array contains values.

I also tried dumping $user and $email - everything is fine, $user object is populated with data and $email is correct.

Anybody know what can be the issue here and how can I retrieve the signup meta?

Scenario is when a new user is added by Admin from Dashboard. My goal is to parse the role that is assigned when new user is created by admin.

It's a bug fixing attempt, since the plugin that I am using to manage custom and default roles (WPFront User Role Editor), overrides the Administrator role assigned to a new user from the Dashboard. So, when a new user is activated I want to check if he was initially assigned Administrator role and update the default role assigned by the plugin.

Answer 1

Alright, finally I sorted it out - and it was a query error (embarrassing it is).

Correct code:

add_action( 'wpmu_activate_user', 'promote_to_admin', 99 );
function promote_to_admin( $user_id, $password, $meta ) {
    global $wpdb;
    $user = get_userdata( $user_id );
    $email = $user->user_email;
    // You need to prepare query first to avoid SQL errors
    $query = $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT meta from `wp_signups` where `user_email` = %s", $email );
    // By default, Object(stdClass) will be returned; 
    // tell WordPress to convert it to multidimensional array
    $raw_meta = $wpdb->get_results( $query, ARRAY_A );
    // After conversion, array will be represented as serialized string - unserialize it
    $signup_meta = unserialize( $raw_meta[0]['meta'] );
    if ( array_key_exists( 'new_role', $signup_meta ) ) {
        $user->set_role( $signup_meta['new_role'] );
    }
}