Import Export Free Version – Table Issues

The short version is that what you’re seeing is expected, and there’s a way to fix it for free. The reason your imported links don’t show up is that newer versions of Pretty Links don’t store links only in the wp_prli_links table anymore. Each link also has a matching entry in your wp_posts table as a custom post type (post_type ‘pretty-link’), and the two are tied together by the link_cpt_id column in wp_prli_links.

The links list in the admin is actually the standard WordPress post list for that custom post type, so it reads from wp_posts and matches up to wp_prli_links using link_cpt_id. When you copied just the wp_prli_* tables, the link_cpt_id values in those rows still point at post IDs from your old site that don’t exist on the new one, so nothing matches and the list shows zero. Your data is definitely there, the admin just can’t connect it to anything.

(Quick note on the new test link not showing in the table: it actually does get written to wp_prli_links, it just gets the next auto-increment ID so it lands after all your imported rows. It also creates its wp_posts entry at the same time, which is why it shows in the admin and your imported ones don’t.)

To answer your questions directly:

Moving just the wp_prli_* tables isn’t a supported migration path on its own anymore, specifically because the matching wp_posts entries don’t come along with it. Besides the tables, the plugin relies on those wp_posts rows (post_type ‘pretty-link’) plus the prli_db_version row in wp_options. And yes, any link whose link_cpt_id doesn’t match a real post will be ignored by the admin list.

But you don’t need Pro to fix this. Pretty Links has a built-in routine that recreates the missing wp_posts entries for any links that don’t have one. We just need to tell it your imported links need that, and nudge it to run.

Back up your database first, then on the new site (after importing the wp_prli_* tables) run these three queries in phpMyAdmin, Adminer, or wp db query. Change the wp_ prefix if yours is different:

UPDATE wp_prli_links SET link_cpt_id = 0;

DELETE FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'prli_db_version';

INSERT INTO wp_options (option_name, option_value, autoload) VALUES ('prli_db_version', '21', 'yes');

After that, just open any wp-admin page once. The plugin will notice the version is behind, create a post for each imported link, reconnect everything, and then update the version number on its own. Your links should all show up in the list after that, with click counts intact.

What those lines are doing: setting link_cpt_id to 0 marks every imported link as needing a new post (the rebuild only touches links that don’t have one yet, so the old stale IDs have to be cleared). And resetting prli_db_version to 21 makes the plugin think it’s mid-upgrade so the rebuild kicks in on the next admin page load. Any value from 1 to 21 works as long as it’s there and below 22. If you have a lot of links, that first page load might take a few seconds while it builds the posts.

A couple of things that should reassure you: your click history (wp_prli_clicks) and your groups (wp_prli_groups) carry over fine, so you won’t lose those. And your imported links were most likely already redirecting correctly even before any of this, because the redirect side looks links up directly by slug in wp_prli_links and doesn’t need the post entry. It was only the admin screens that couldn’t see them.

Give that a try and let me know how it goes. If anything still looks off afterward, reply back with what you’re seeing and I’ll help you work through it.