[Closed] So disappointing performance due to WPML

Hello,

On the local copy, we were able to delete most of the content with the following steps:

- We disabled all plugins except for WPML itself (you may not need to do this, but it puts less stress on the resources)
- We added the plugin WPCode Lite and I added a custom PHP snippet, which I set to On Demand (i.e. when I click a button)
- WE added this code to the snippet:

// Run for 'ar' until there are no more posts, then repeat for 'he' 
$language_code = 'ar';

global $wpdb;

$query = "
    SELECT * 
    FROM wp_icl_translations
    WHERE language_code LIKE %s 
    AND element_type LIKE 'post_%' 
    LIMIT 200
";

$results = $wpdb->get_results(
    $wpdb->prepare($query, $language_code)
);

if (!empty($results)) {
    foreach ($results as $result) {
        $deleted = wp_delete_post( $result->element_id, true );
    }
}

We are going to use the above to remove the translated content in batches. I set the limit to 200 posts at a time. There are roughly 1600 posts of varying types for Arabic and for Hebrew, so it will be necessary to manually trigger the code about 8 times for 'ar', then edit the snippet to change the language code to 'he', and trigger the code another 8 times.

It looks like this in the editor: hidden link

Each time the snippet runs it will take a good few seconds to complete, it should be obvious.

When the above has been done you can return to WPML > Languages and try once more to delete any remaining content if there are a few posts left over.

You will, however, run into the limitation described in this erratum: https://wpml.org/errata/taxonomies-are-not-deleted-with-the-delete-content-from-database-option/

The routines to delete translated content when removing languages overlooks taxonomies. The erratum describes how that can be done manually.

Once that is completed it should be possible to then go to the WPML troubleshooting page and perform a Reset, which will also delete WPML's database tables.

Let me know if you have questions,

All the steps I shared in my previous reply is actually already tested on a local version of the site, you just need to run the same steps as described on the live site,

With your permission and after saving a backup, I can run them for you.

Let me know how you want to proceed.