Need to delete about 10000 custom posts from The Events Calendar

[Karelle ScharffParticipant]

The Events Calendar went berserk and created 10000+ duplicate recurring events. I’m looking for a way to bulk delete them. They’re a custom post type and there are a few titles that tend to cause the problem. One custom taxonomy (a category). I tried using the Bulk Delete to delete 1000 but it crashed the backend of the site, so I reduced it to 200; still crashed the backend. But at 150, though it crashed the backend, it deleted about 137. So I’ve tried at 130 and sometimes it gets away with that, sometimes not. Anyway, I wondered if there was a way to schedule the deletions for every 10 minutes or so at 100 a pop? Yes, I will buy an add-on, if it will actually work.

[SudarKeymaster]

Hello Karelle,

Using the add-ons you will be able to schedule the deletion to repeat at any interval. So regarding your second question, once you buy the add-ons you will be able to schedule the deletion.

Regarding your first question, the plugin is crashing because your server is running out of memory. Go to Bulk WP -> System Info and find out what is the total amount of memory in your server and what is the amount that is assigned to WordPress. Based on that information we will be able to tweak it so that the plugin is able to delete more posts at every iteration.

[Karelle ScharffParticipant]

Thanks for your response!

How do I increase the WordPress Memory limit?

### Begin System Info ###

Multisite: No

SITE_URL: http://www.theoldgallery.org
HOME_URL: http://www.theoldgallery.org
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_10_5) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/51.0.2704.84 Safari/537.36

Permalink Structure: /%postname%/
Active Theme: Headway Base 3.8.8
Registered Post types: post, page, attachment, revision, nav_menu_item, omapi, team, tribe_events, tribe_venue, tribe_organizer
post publish=95, future=0, draft=3, pending=0, private=0, trash=0, auto-draft=1, inherit=0,
page publish=79, future=0, draft=0, pending=0, private=1, trash=1, auto-draft=0, inherit=0,
attachment publish=0, future=0, draft=0, pending=0, private=0, trash=0, auto-draft=0, inherit=781,
revision publish=0, future=0, draft=0, pending=0, private=0, trash=0, auto-draft=0, inherit=482,
nav_menu_item publish=68, future=0, draft=1, pending=0, private=0, trash=0, auto-draft=0, inherit=0,
omapi publish=1, future=0, draft=0, pending=0, private=0, trash=0, auto-draft=0, inherit=0,
team publish=9, future=0, draft=0, pending=0, private=0, trash=0, auto-draft=0, inherit=0,
tribe_events publish=13987, future=0, draft=0, pending=0, private=0, trash=8257, auto-draft=1, inherit=0,
tribe_venue publish=13, future=0, draft=0, pending=0, private=0, trash=0, auto-draft=0, inherit=0,
tribe_organizer publish=8, future=0, draft=0, pending=0, private=0, trash=0, auto-draft=0, inherit=0,

Bulk Delete Version: 5.5.4
WordPress Version: 4.5.2
PHP Version: 5.6.10
MySQL Version: 5.6.25
Web Server Info: Apache

WordPress Memory Limit: 40M
WordPress Max Limit: 256M
PHP Memory Limit: 256M

SAVEQUERIES: Not set
WP_DEBUG: Disabled
WP_SCRIPT_DEBUG: Not set

GMT Offset: -6

DISABLE_WP_CRON: Not set
WP_CRON_LOCK_TIMEOUT: 60
EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS: 30

PHP Safe Mode: No
PHP Upload Max Size: 64M
PHP Post Max Size: 65M
PHP Upload Max Filesize: 64M
PHP Time Limit: 30
PHP Max Input Vars: 2000
PHP Arg Separator: &
PHP Allow URL File Open: Yes

WP Table Prefix: wp9emhny_

Session: Disabled
Session Name: PHPSESSID
Cookie Path: /
Save Path: /tmp
Use Cookies: On
Use Only Cookies: On

DISPLAY ERRORS: On (1)
FSOCKOPEN: Your server supports fsockopen.
cURL: Your server supports cURL.
SOAP Client: Your server has the SOAP Client enabled.
SUHOSIN: Your server does not have SUHOSIN installed.

ACTIVE PLUGINS:

Bulk Delete: 5.5.4
Google Analytics Dashboard for WP: 4.9.3.1
Gravity Forms: 1.9.13
Gravity Forms + Custom Post Types: 3.1.3
Gravity Forms Advanced File Uploader: 1.37
Gravity Forms MailChimp Add-On: 3.6
Gravity Forms PayPal Standard Add-On: 2.4
Gravity Forms Signature Add-On: 2.4
iThemes Security Pro: 1.17.1
OptinMonster API: 1.1.4.6
Team Profiles: 1.2
The Events Calendar: 4.1.4
The Events Calendar PRO: 4.1.2
UberMenu 2 – WordPress Mega Menu Plugin: 2.3.2.2
UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore: 1.12.12
Wordfence Security: 6.1.8
WP Bulk Post Delete: 1.0

### End System Info ###

[Karelle ScharffParticipant]

I just tried adding the line: define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’64M’); and then upped it to 128M but it still defaults to a 404 page and only deletes about 120 when I try to delete 200 or more and winds up at a 404 page.

[SudarKeymaster]

Hello Karelle,

You should be getting a 500 error page when your server runs out of memory. I am not sure why you are getting a 404.

Would it be possible for you to give me access to your server, so that I can debug the issue?

[Author]

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