I expected to see:
I click all the languages I want to sync and click "Sync"
Instead, I got:
Nothing happens. Its always stuck at "0" and the progress doesnt move. Ive tried disabling all my plugins, removing all languages except 1-2 and trying again, increasing my memory limit, nothing seems to work. Please help me figure out why the menus will not sync and the progress stays at 0.
Welcome to WPML Support. I'll do my best to help you solve this issue.
Please make a full backup of your site (files and database) and confirm it in your next reply.
If possible please provide access to the staging website, not production.
Please note, that I might need to do some debugging procedures like enable/disable plugins, switch themes, change the default language of the user account, and/or access your website database to debug the issue furtherly.
I will share with you any changes or steps done in this process. Please let me know if you do not agree with the above or if I do not have your permission for any.
I would need to access both your site's wp-admin and FTP account, if possible.
I have enabled the private username and password fields in your next reply.
I suggest you create a new user, set it as an administrator and then add those credentials in the private fields mentioned.
You can safely add your information into these fields.
I have tried to access the menu sync tool, but it gives a 502 error, which means there is an error from the server. I tried also in minimal, all plugins disabled and to check the error log, but nothing was helpful.
Can you please contact hosting and check if they can help and if any error is reported for this, might be helpful.
I reached out to WP Engine and they removed the long task killer. I tested the menu sync and the 502 error is now gone, but the original issue is still there with it freezing / getting stuck at 0 and making no progress no matter how long I wait.
I checked and it seems since it is a heavy process and you have 2252 items to be synced, the server terminates/needs more resources to run and finish this.
If you do not check all checkboxes and run fewer items, probably should work.
What I have done, is disable all plugins except for WPML plugins, and switch to WP default theme. Then from wp-config.php file, increased memory limits to 1024M.
If you now go to the Menu sync tool and run the tool a few times (800 items) until all items are synced, it should work just fine. I have tried to do it for you but after 2nd time I again get 502.
Please check with hosting support again and then try it yourself and let me know how it goes.
It should work fine with fewer items in few time or not running all items at once, as you can see in the image.
Unfortunately it still doesnt work for me. Im not getting the 502 error, I just click "sync" and it freezes at zero with no progress being made. I tried disabling the plugins like you said, switching to default theme, and even tried just syncing one language at a time. Even just doing 100 items it doesnt move. Any idea why? Always at 0 no matter how long I wait.
I also reached out to WP Engine who said they were seeing a possible memory leak issue coming from the WPML plugin. Any thoughts on this or workarounds? We just need to sync our menus across all languages.
I am afraid I still can not access it and getting a 502 server error, so I can not check or see it what goes wrong.
As said, in my previous reply, you have a lot of language and pages that need to be synced so this action of menu sync take a lot of resources at once, which seems your hosting is limiting.
We are aware of this option is taking a bit more than expected, and there are plans to improve this option for when using many languages I have tried also to implement a workaround from our devs:
So, what I suggest next is to check with hosting support please, and try to increase resources (memory and time execution value) so I can check an access menu sync tool and try to find a workaround for your case and sync pages. Later on, you can decrease resources back.
Thank you for your help on this! We were able to work with WP Engine who adjusted our long task killer and that helped remove the 502 errors. We then were able to successfully sync 3-4 languages at a time with all other plugins deactivated. Please let me know if there's anything else you'd like to take a look at, if not ill plan to mark this resolved for now.
Will do! I also had a quick question about how the sync works. Now that I finished the sync, are all my menus connected moving forward? Or will I need to re-run the sync tool every time a menu change is made?
each time there is a new change to the default language, you will need to run a menu sync. But I think this time should be less troubling, as it needs to sync only changes, not most of the menus to all languages as was the case when you first reported.
