WPML

Slow Performance on Category Pages Due to Meta Data Handling

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Overview of the Issue

When loading category pages with WPML, there could be a noticeable performance drop, especially on the first load per language. This issue appears if the wp_postmeta table uses utf8mb3_general_ci collation, which can affect speed due to its incompatibility with more efficient utf8mb4_general_ci.

Workaround

Please, make sure of having a full site backup of your site before proceeding.

  • Access to your database and open the wp_postmeta table.
  • Check if it has a utf8mb3_general_ci collation instead of utf8mb4_general_ci.
  • If that’s the case, replace it with a similar SQL query: 
    ALTER TABLE `wp_postmeta`
CHANGE `meta_key` `meta_key` varchar(255) COLLATE 'utf8mb4_general_ci' NULL AFTER `post_id`,
CHANGE `meta_value` `meta_value` longtext COLLATE 'utf8mb4_general_ci' NULL AFTER `meta_key`,
COLLATE 'utf8mb4_general_ci';

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