[Resolved] Duplicate images after deactiviating WPML

Hi, here is an update

Your query doesn't work correctly. It does remove the duplicate entries, but it doesn't take into account that images have been used. It's ok for pages where WP/theme directly links to the image file, but it breaks images in galleries that link to the entry ID.

You also advised the media cleaner plugin. That also doesn't work. The media library shows 6 entries pointing to the exact same image files. So one from the original uploaded file and 5 from the copies that WPML made for the different languages. The media cleaner plugin does find the copies, but when I use the plugin to delete them, it also deletes the actual files. This leaves one entry in the media library that points to an image file that is deleted and it breaks every page where that image has been used on the website.

You really have to come with a better solution to fix the mess that was left behind by WPML.

Yes the Image ID was originally used in translated posts/pages, but after removing WPML, the media library shows 6 entries for the same image. You don't see what the original entry is and what entries were created by WPML. So when you pick an image in a new post/page, you don't know if it's the original or or a copy.

And yes it is a mess caused by WPML because you don't offer a way to remove the translated media items. The only thing the reset message says is that it doesn't delete any content. It doesn't tell you how you can remove the translated content and it doesn't warn you what happens with the media library.

As for the content, before removing and resetting WPML I manually deleted the translated posts/pages, because the posts/pages list has a filter at the top where you can filter by language, so you can easily delete the translations. Such filter is not available in the media library. And even if it was, you would probably not think about using it before removing WPML.

The mess is now that I have 5 copies of each image in the media library without any option to remove the copies, because the database does not contain any marker that indicates that it is a WPML media record.

You are repeating the same message again, but it doesn't help me fix the duplicate image issue.

It looks like the query you gave to delete the duplicate records is the only way to get rid of them. Since this is now going on for 4 weeks and you didn't come up with a better solution, I used this query. As expected, it left me with several broken images on the website.

The image (media) is actually a standard post type of WordPress and an image is also a post content, please read more here https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/basics/post-types/ You can delete the image in second languages manually by switching language with the language switcher at the topbar menu in the admin area.

That only works if WPML is still active, not after a reset which is the whole issue of this ticket!

And we also have documentation about deleting content when removing a language https://wpml.org/faq/how-to-completely-remove-a-language-from-your-site/

That's only available since version 4.5.9 which wasn't released yet when I deactivated and reset WPML.

I will inform our development team to consider adding a link to the documentation in the Reset section to suggest deleting content in the second language.

The current reset option is destructive and leaves you with a big mess that's almost impossible to get rid off. The message that explains it is ambiguous.

Also, if you want to remove WPML, you want this to be as easy as possible. It's too many steps if you first have to go to another place to disable all languages, then delete the content from these languages and then use reset.

So in my opinion the reset option should do it all and give a choice to:
1. Reset WPML and delete translated content
2. Reset WPML and keep translated content

Thanks
JP