Title: Cannot delete ‘phantom’ posts Last modified: October 1, 2016 --- # Cannot delete ‘phantom’ posts * [David](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidhc/) * (@davidhc) * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/) * Hi, * So we’re getting a bunch of posts appearing without any content, images etc, ( but some tags) and no titles. They each have four digit titles in their URL though, so it displays as [http://www.domain.com/1410](http://www.domain.com/1410) and so on. * When we select send to trash, nothing happens; singularly or as bulk. Selecting another otherwise regular post however, and it goes straight into the trash as expected. I can’t also add a category to them, they are all listed as ‘Uncategorized’. * Also cannot change status to ‘Draft’. * Searched the forum and couldn’t find anything quite like this, nor have I ever seen this before! So would really appreciate any help. * Edit: should also mention, that hosts have looked into it and said the proble, isn’t happening server side. * Many thanks, * David - This topic was modified 9 years, 8 months ago by [David](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidhc/). Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 20 total) 1 [2](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/page/2/?output_format=md) [→](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/page/2/?output_format=md) * Moderator [t-p](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t-p/) * (@t-p) * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8242533) * > So we’re getting a bunch of posts appearing without any content * do you recognize the author (s) of these posts? * Moderator [Steven Stern (sterndata)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sterndata/) * (@sterndata) * Volunteer Forum Moderator * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8242536) * Just to be safe, check your database. From phpmyadmin, select all the tables and, with the button at the bottom that says “with selected” choose “check and repair”. * Thread Starter [David](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidhc/) * (@davidhc) * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8242638) * Hi Tara, yeah there appears to be no difference in author. i.e there’s only one author. * Steve, just tried this, but has no effect on deleting the posts. Any ideas? * Moderator [Steven Stern (sterndata)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sterndata/) * (@sterndata) * Volunteer Forum Moderator * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8242645) * Have you checked to see if you’ve been hacked? * Thread Starter [David](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidhc/) * (@davidhc) * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8242646) * How would we go about that? * In fact, we get quite a few emails from the Wordfence plugin for that domain about blocked login attempts… * Moderator [Steven Stern (sterndata)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sterndata/) * (@sterndata) * Volunteer Forum Moderator * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8242648) * scan with Wordfence, check your site on sitecheck.sucuri.net * Moderator [t-p](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t-p/) * (@t-p) * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8242665) * sitecheck.sucuri.net did not indicate hacking of the site. * However, as [@sterndata](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sterndata/), please also scan with Wordfence. * Thread Starter [David](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidhc/) * (@davidhc) * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8243228) * Hm odd, Wordfence wasn’t even installed when I checked. (We have recently transferred this domain to a new server so may be why?) Although were still receiving Wordfence blocked login emails :s * I’ve reinstalled it and its scan showed everything secure apart from the DNS change we made. * sitecheck.sucuri.net also showed no problems. * Any ideas? 🙁 * Moderator [Steven Stern (sterndata)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sterndata/) * (@sterndata) * Volunteer Forum Moderator * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8243911) * If you compare the times these posts are created against your access logs, can you see who’s creating them and their IP address? * Thread Starter [David](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidhc/) * (@davidhc) * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8248732) * We’ve just been trying to do this with our hosts’ help, can’t see any obvious appearance of where they’re being created using the access log, although we’re not entirely sure we understood the log completely! * I think I may have figured something else out though that may be of use; they all contain tags that the user would have added. Selecting one relatively obscure tag that I believe would have only been entered for one post, does indeed filter to only one of the problematic posts. * What’s more, these posts all have the date of publishing as either 2012 or 2013. The earliest, and unaffected post, after this is from 2014. * So is it likely this isn’t to do with a hacking? * Moderator [Steven Stern (sterndata)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sterndata/) * (@sterndata) * Volunteer Forum Moderator * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8249004) * maybe 🙂 * At this point, though, the way to delete those posts may be to either write a script or do it with SQL queries. * Thread Starter [David](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidhc/) * (@davidhc) * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8249018) * Ominous! 🙁 * I see, so it has to be a query run through phpmysql? Can we select a delete the posts from here? * Moderator [Steven Stern (sterndata)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sterndata/) * (@sterndata) * Volunteer Forum Moderator * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8249032) * You can delete posts (and the associated postmeta records) from phpmyadmin. You’ll need to see how they relate: * [https://codex.wordpress.org/Database_Description](https://codex.wordpress.org/Database_Description) * Thread Starter [David](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidhc/) * (@davidhc) * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8249035) * Hm in fact, looking at the posts on Phpmyadmin, I see many pages of these posts supposedly created in 2012. Really not sure now…getting more and more confused/ concerned! * Thread Starter [David](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidhc/) * (@davidhc) * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/#post-8249056) * How the Post and the Postmeta relate to eachother? * Looking on the table now, some posts are listed as Post Type: Post, so I guess those are instances of posts? As opposed to those listed as Attachment for instance? * I’ve also noticed there’s two different Post_Author types, 1 and 0. Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 20 total) 1 [2](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/page/2/?output_format=md) [→](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/page/2/?output_format=md) The topic ‘Cannot delete ‘phantom’ posts’ is closed to new replies. * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/) * 20 replies * 3 participants * Last reply from: [David](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidhc/) * Last activity: [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cannot-delete-phantom-posts/page/2/#post-8252213) * Status: not resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics