[ArieleK]

I already tried that and it caused the same blank page/slow loading issue, since it copies over all of the extra database entries with it, I’m going to try cleaning up the database myself and see how that goes, since I think I know which entries are causing the issue

[ArieleK]

Awesome, thanks so much!

It looks like importing the pages causes the same issue, so it was definitely something to do with that before. Would you suggest just trying to re-build the site as similar to the old one as possible, without importing pages? Or is there another option you’d suggest?

[ArieleK]

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[ArieleK]

This reply has been marked as private.

[ArieleK]

Hey,

I’ve already tried disabling plugins to see if that would fix it, didn’t seem to fix the issue. It also shouldn’t be an issue with it being a multisite, the only other one is a staging site that doesn’t have much on it.

I’ve also tried running a WP Optimizer plugin, to remove post revisions, etc. and it didn’t affect anything. The website itself uses about 36MB of memory when not trying to access the page list, but won’t load the page list (white page) when you try.

I really think the issue might have been caused by the extra menu items being in the site when using the page builder, because 100,000 wp_postmeta entries seems extremely high for the amount of pages the site has. Could a developer possibly take a look and see if they can find anything in the database, or offer their input?

Thanks!

[ArieleK]

Also here’s some extra info from talking to WPEngine support:

Unfortunately doing a fresh install of WordPress wouldn’t fix this issue as it’s related to the Page Builder that you were utilizing for your website. This information was clarified in ticket #415776 and the cause of the white screens you’re experiencing is because the theme is inserting Style Arrays into the wp_postmeta table which as Jonathan mentioned is not standard practice and it results in the PHP Memory available to the install running out.

The PHP Memory limit has already been raised substantially on the install to the maximum we could set on the server, though even were this able to be raised higher this would be a bandaid fix for a larger issue.

Our best recommendation on getting this corrected is to see if the theme developer that wrote the page builder has any form of tool available that would allow you to export your content from WordPress or at the very least, remove the PageBuilder data that’s formerly been inserted into the wp_postmeta table.

As much as we would like to assist with this, unfortunately the core of the problem sits within the realm of development & would be outside of the scope of support that we would be able to help with.

When reviewing the database tables for wppostmeta it looks like you have cleared out a large number of them which has made it quite a bit easier to pinpoint the exact style tables that are causing the problem, It looks like these are all (or mostly) prefixed with ‘sf’ within the table- While this would cause you to lose all of the styling on the pages, if you were looking to recover the content of the posts it would be possible to run a mysql query to delete all of the table rows that were prefixed with ‘sf_’ and leave only the remaining attachment metadata which should allow you to use the core WordPress export functions to export the posts and attachments to a new install to rebuild without the PageBuilder.

One company we may recommend checking out for assisting in getting this cleaned up would be WP Curve- They specialize in small fixes and optimizations for a small fee. I would recommend checking them out if the theme developer does not have any recommendations as to re-associate the style arrays.

If you have additional questions, let us know!

[ArieleK]

Hey,

We’ve tried increasing the PHP memory to 512MB and 1024MB, both didn’t end up fixing it. There are around 100,000 entries in the wp_postmeta table in the WordPress db, which seems to be the issue. If I clear the entire table, it fixes the issue, but we lose all of the styling/content added to pages. Could that have been caused by having too many menu items while adding new pages?

I’ve tried going through and searching for entries which may be the issue, but can’t seem to find the exact entries which might’ve been added. Would you be able to possibly check the wp_postmeta table in the database (accessible through WPEngine login previously provided) and see if you can figure out what may be causing the issue? I’m out of ideas.

Thanks!
Colin

[ArieleK]

Hello, I created a back up. Can you proceed with the fix you mentioned now?

Thanks!

[ArieleK]

Hey, What do you mean by respond to those other topics?

I have made a back up of the website so you can help resolve now 🙂