Title: Regenerating HTML code
Last modified: July 20, 2018
---
# Regenerating HTML code
* [bst7](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bst7/)
* (@bst7)
* [7 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/regenerating-html-code/)
* I’ve switched themes from a custom theme to 2017 theme. As part of this transition,
I also want to remove alot of unnecessary image sizes that are taking up alot
of room on my server.
* In order to do this, I removed and regenerated thumbnails. However, this breaks
ALL of my existing posts. I want to just have these image sizes (in pixel widths):
525w, 375w,768w and 620w for compatability
* However the srcset for tag has these additional sizes:
…/uploads/2014/08/01-
20140813-L1004852-980×654.jpg 980w, …/uploads/2014/08/01-20140813-L1004852-780
×520.jpg 780w, …/uploads/2014/08/01-20140813-L1004852-300×200.jpg 300w, …/uploads/
2014/08/01-20140813-L1004852-175×116.jpg 175w”
* After doing some research, I found these notes:
* > [Responsive Images in WordPress 4.4](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2015/11/10/responsive-images-in-wordpress-4-4/)
* which states:
Note that for compatibility with existing markup, neither srcset
nor sizes are added or modified if they already exist in content HTML.
* But, this is a problem for me, as I want to get rid of these images, but as they
are being included in the srcset I can’t for existing posts….
* Ideally, I would like to tell wordpress to regenerate all of the HTML pages,
using the current set of image sizes. I have actually fixed any minor recompatability
problems, and I would rather do this than have some kind of runtime modification
of the HTML code to filter out unwanted images.
* Currently, I’m regenerating the complete set of thumbnails for all of these sizes,
as I can’t find any other solution at this point.
* Thanks
* William
* (PS – if this is moderated and I’ve posted in the wrong forum, can you please
email with details about where I should post! Thanks! 🙂
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
* [Joy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/joyously/)
* (@joyously)
* [7 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/regenerating-html-code/#post-10513652)
* The srcset is generated when the page is viewed. The compatibility note is referring
to srcset or sizes that are in `img` tags already (put there by the user or editor
or a plugin). If you use the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin, it fixes the `img`
tags in your content.
The database has size information on each attachment.
Any changing of image sizes needs to update that information. You can use a plugin
like Dynamic Image Resize, which only generates the sizes when they are used,
instead of having them all there all the time.
* Thread Starter [bst7](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bst7/)
* (@bst7)
* [7 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/regenerating-html-code/#post-10516285)
* Hi Joy,
* Thanks for your comments. That is how I thought it would work too, but it doesn’t.
* All that I see that Regenerate Thumbnails does is to regenerate the images based
on the registered sizes I have on my site at that time. It does not – as my post
above describes – adjust any of the parameters that are used to generate the
HTML… From somewhere – I don’t know where – WP has kept or cached a knowledge
of the images sizes for each image in the DB, so that is why I get the above
HTML where the IMG srcset is generating a list that references that no longer
exist.
* So, your comment though is interesting:
“The database has size information on
each attachment. Any changing of image sizes needs to update that information.”
* The regenerate plugin is not touching that information, which is my problem.
* Do you know of anyway that I can get access to that cache in the database and
reset it?
* Basically, I just want the HTML’s IMG srcset that is generated to only include
currently valid image sizes, with no reference to previous sizes.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by [bst7](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bst7/).
* [Joe McGill](https://wordpress.org/support/users/joemcgill/)
* (@joemcgill)
* [7 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/regenerating-html-code/#post-10524057)
* Hi [@bst7](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bst7/),
* As [@joyously](https://wordpress.org/support/users/joyously/) correctly suggested
above, WordPress adds the `srcset` attribute to images in your posts when the
page is created. It does not save those values in the content in the database
to avoid exactly the situation you’re describing, so it’s a unexpected that you
would see a page with a `srcset` that includes images that are no longer available
on your server after regenerating.
* I expect that one of two things are happening. Either a) you have a caching plugin
installed that saved the old markup from before the time when the images are
regenerated, or b) your database still includes the deleted files in the attachment
metadata for those attachments. To check the latter, can you find the attachment
id for one of the images that isn’t working and use either [wp_get_attachment_metadata()](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_get_attachment_metadata/)
in your site or look up the value in the post_meta table of your database where
the meta key is `_wp_attachment_metadata` and the ID matches the attachment ID?
* Thread Starter [bst7](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bst7/)
* (@bst7)
* [7 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/regenerating-html-code/#post-10527203)
* Hi Joe,
* Thanks for your reply. Yes, this was the behaviour I expected as well, so I was
surprised to see it behave differently.
* I added one of the images I know demonstrates this problem to a new page. I deleted
all of the thumbnails, and regenerated the smaller set (375w,575w,768w). I verified
the server ONLY has these sizes – and in the Regenerate Plugin itself, it only
tells me it should only generate those sizes. Same problem, I still see the srcset
with all of these additional sizes.
* There is no cache’ing that I can see on the website. No cache plugin (I deleted
the one that was installed previously, but that hasn’t been running for years).
* So, I’m looking through the database, and I see alot of values for attachment_metadata
as you suggested, all with size info that I no longer want, as well as sizes
I do want.. This is an abbreviated list:
* a:4:{s:4:”file”;s:27:”20130529_L1101623-50×50.jpg”;s:5:”width”;i:50;s:6:”height”;
i:50;s:9:”mime-type”;s:10:”image/jpeg”;}s:6:”medium”;
a:4:{s:4:”file”;s:29:”
20130529_L1101623-375×249.jpg”;s:5:”width”;i:375;s:6:”height”;i:249;s:9:”mime-
type”;s:10:”image/jpeg”;}s:12:”medium_large”; a:4:{s:4:”file”;s:29:”20130529_L1101623-
768×511.jpg”;s:5:”width”;i:768;s:6:”height”;i:511;s:9:”mime-type”;s:10:”image/
jpeg”;}s:5:”large”; a:4:{s:4:”file”;s:29:”20130529_L1101623-525×349.jpg”;s:5:”
width”;i:525;s:6:”height”;i:349;s:9:”mime-type”;s:10:”image/jpeg”;}s:12:”ws-large-
620″; a:4:{s:4:”file”;s:29:”20130529_L1101623-620×412.jpg”;s:5:”width”;i:620;
s:6:”height”;i:412;s:9:”mime-type”;s:10:”image/jpeg”;}s:32:”twentyseventeen-thumbnail-
avatar”; a:4:{s:4:”file”;s:29:”20130529_L1101623-100×100.jpg”;s:5:”width”;i:100;
s:6:”height”;i:100;s:9:”mime-type”;s:10:”image/jpeg”;}s:17:”ws-two-column-175″;
* I’ve no idea how to clean this up!
* Can I delete all of this, delete all of the thumbnails, and then regenerate them?
* Or, any suggestions?
* Tahnks
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
The topic ‘Regenerating HTML code’ is closed to new replies.
* In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
* 4 replies
* 3 participants
* Last reply from: [bst7](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bst7/)
* Last activity: [7 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/regenerating-html-code/#post-10527203)
* Status: not resolved
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