Problem: You are experiencing slow performance on your site, and PHP x-ray reports indicate that WPML is significantly impacting performance. The issue might be related to the database collation settings for the wp_postmeta table. Solution: We recommend altering the collation of your wp_postmeta table to utf8mb4_general_ci to potentially resolve the performance issues. You can do this by executing the following SQL commands in your database:
ALTER TABLE `wp_postmeta`<br />CHANGE `meta_key` `meta_key` varchar(255) COLLATE 'utf8mb4_general_ci' NULL AFTER `post_id`,<br />CHANGE `meta_value` `meta_value` longtext COLLATE 'utf8mb4_general_ci' NULL AFTER `meta_key`,<br />COLLATE 'utf8mb4_general_ci';
If this solution does not apply to your case, or if it is outdated, we highly recommend checking related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. If the issue persists, please open a new support ticket at WPML support forum for further assistance.
Problem: If you're experiencing slow site performance when the Advanced Custom Fields Multilingual plugin is activated, it might be due to the high number of ACF field calls. In a case we investigated, activating WPML increased the load time significantly because it hooked into each ACF field call for translation, executing over 8000 times. Solution: To address this, we recommend two strategies: 1. Reduce the number of ACF field calls by modifying the theme to minimize usage of
acf_get_field
, especially for fields that don't require translation. Replace these with direct
get_post_meta
calls to bypass both WPML and ACF retrieval logic. 2. Use a filter introduced in ACFML 2.1.4 to bypass translation logic. Add the following code to your theme's
This code ensures that only fields marked for translation are processed, significantly improving performance.
If these solutions do not resolve your issue or seem outdated, we highly recommend checking related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. If the problem persists, please open a new support ticket.
Problem: You are experiencing slower PageSpeed scores on the Polish version of your site compared to the English version, despite using the Litespeed Cache Plugin and both versions being identical except for the language. Solution: The discrepancy in speed between the English and Polish versions of your site is likely due to the additional processing required by WPML for translated pages. WPML needs to handle and filter translation layers, which involves accessing, processing, and displaying content based on the selected language. This necessary process introduces a slight overhead, which might affect the load times and PageSpeed scores of the translated pages.
If this solution does not resolve your issue, or if it seems outdated or irrelevant to your case, we recommend opening a new support ticket. Additionally, we highly recommend checking related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. For further assistance, please visit our support forum at WPML Support Forum.
Problem: When installing WPML String Translation on a WordPress multisite, the site experiences significant performance issues, using excessive RAM and CPU, leading to MySQL crashes. Additionally, the beta version dropdown is missing in the 'Commercial' section of the plugins page. Solution: First, ensure you are using the latest version of WPML String Translation by checking the changelog at WPML String Translation Changelog. If you encounter crashes, enable debugging on your site to identify specific issues. Modify your wp-config.php file:
define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
This will save error logs to a debug.log file within the /wp-content/ directory. For detailed instructions on enabling debugging, visit Debugging WPML. Since the beta version is not currently available in the 'Commercial' section due to it not being publicly released yet, keep an eye on WPML Changelog and WPML Announcements for updates on new releases.
If these steps do not resolve your issue or the solution seems outdated, we recommend opening a new support ticket. We also highly suggest checking related known issues at WPML Known Issues, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. For further assistance, please contact us through the WPML Support Forum.
Problem: The client is experiencing significant slowdowns on their website when using WPML with WooCommerce, as identified by the Query Monitor plugin.
Solution: We recommended several steps to improve WPML performance: 1. Temporarily deactivate WPML to compare load differences and identify duplicate queries. 2. Disable 'display as translated' (Fallback mode) for post types, taxonomies, and custom fields in WPML > Settings. 3. Turn off 'Adjust IDs for multilingual functionality' in WPML > Languages. 4. Run 'Cleanup and optimize string tables', 'Clear invalid strings', and 'Remove ghost entries from WPML tables' in WPML > Support > Troubleshooting. 5. Consider disabling unnecessary plugins and WPML Media Translation if not using different images per language. 6. Disable 'Track where strings appear on the site' in String Translation. 7. Optimize media and use caching plugins like Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, or WP-Rocket. 8. Increase hosting/server resources if necessary. For detailed guidance, refer to our documentation on boosting the performance of your multilingual WordPress site.
If these steps do not resolve your issue or if the solution seems outdated, please check related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verify the version of the permanent fix, and confirm that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. We highly recommend opening a new support ticket for further assistance at WPML support forum.
Problem: The client's WooCommerce store experienced a slowdown after installing multiple languages using WPML. The client considered removing WPML Media and untranslated strings but was unsure if these changes would significantly improve site speed.
Solution: We advised the client not to use PHP 8.3 as it is still in beta for WordPress and could slow down the site. Instead, we recommended using PHP 8.1. We suggested monitoring the site with the Query Monitor plugin to identify slow and duplicate queries. For managing strings, we directed the client to WPML > Support > Troubleshooting to delete unused strings and provided guidance on how to delete strings from WPML -> Strings Translation, which can be read more about here.
Additionally, we found that WPML Media does not significantly impact performance unless used for translating images specifically for different languages. We also noted that the site's hosting might contribute to performance issues due to resource limitations or database call restrictions, especially with increased content from multiple languages.
If these steps do not resolve the issue or if the solution seems outdated or irrelevant to your case, we highly recommend checking related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. If further assistance is needed, please open a new support ticket here.
Problem: The client is experiencing very slow performance on their website. A PHP X-Ray report identified WPML as the root cause. Despite updating WPML from version 4.6.12 to 4.6.13, the issue persisted. Solution: We discovered that the slow performance was due to specific theme code in
. The problematic code is a function designed to update the focus keyword for all posts of a certain type on every page load. Here is the code:
// Function to automatically update the focus keyword for all: sights<br />function update_focus_keywords_sights()<br />{<br /> $posts = get_posts(array(<br /> 'posts_per_page' => -1,<br /> 'post_type' => 'sights' //replace post with the name of your post type<br /> ));<br /> foreach ($posts as $p) {<br /> update_post_meta($p->ID, 'rank_math_focus_keyword', strtolower(get_the_title($p->ID)));<br /> }<br />}<br />add_action('init', 'update_focus_keywords_sights');
Removing this code reduced the site's load time from approximately 17 seconds to 4.5 seconds. We recommend removing or optimizing this function to improve performance.
If this solution does not apply to your case, or if it seems outdated, please check the related known issues and confirm that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. If the problem persists, we highly recommend opening a new support ticket at WPML support forum.
