Do not plug & play!
-
To be honest, it is a great plugin. One of the best I have seen on databasemaintenance. So why ‘only’ 4 stars? Because it is a tool that has the potential to destroy entire websites, if you are not very, very carefull. The general cleanup is not the main issue in this regard. That is suited for both layman and wp professional. But even then, do not plug & play and make sure to backup your website or at least your database.
This is one of the things I am missing on Advanced Database Cleaner (I have the Pro edition): there is no integrated backup utility. Since everything you do requires a backup first, this would be for me a mandatory asset. Creating automatic db backups before deleting or changing anything.
If you have the Pro version like me, the plugin does reveal a lot of information about your databasetables and specifficly de wp_options table. You must however take nothing at face value. In the options table a lot of options in a larger database can be marked as Orphan, but you realy need to check and dubblecheck to wich they belong. Even the entries with a related plugin, theme or wp core mentioned, do so with a percentage of certainty. Even 80% certainty or higher needs to be dubble checked.
Never, ever delete just all ‘Orphans’, because then you will be in for a surprise. Truth be said, the plugin does warn you about making backups, asking if you are sure you want to do something irriversable etc.
If you are using this plugin you also need to understand how to work with PhpMyAdmin and how, for example to backup the options table and how to restore it. If somethings goes wrong, you can not use the plugin anymore in most cases and you have to realy on Direct Admin, Plesk or cPanel, to restore your database.
I am comfartable with PhpMyAdmin and databasequery’s. I also use several tools, including AI (Gemini) to help me find out what certain options realy are. Do not take AI at face value too, but use it as a tool to guide you in the possible right direction. After more then a week of making backups, removing options, sometimes testing options table and questioning the AI results also, I got my options table down from 1345 rows, to about 579 rows and 35% less autoloads.
The plugin itself is certainly worth the money for the pro version and a five star rating. It warns you to backup everything, but it is misses some safeguards and failsafes for the novice and even more seasoned users. For me the results where great, but it took me many hours, searching, doubting en dubble checking everything I was about to delete or not autoload.
Ofcourse there are many great backup plugins to be used, but if Advanced Database Cleaner would have backup options in place like stated above, it would also be a much more ‘secure’ plugin.
The topic ‘Do not plug & play!’ is closed to new replies.
