Fixing Category and Comment Count Issues After WordPress Import

Before making any changes, it’s crucial to back up your WordPress site. We recommend using a reliable backup plugin like Duplicator.

Step 1: Back Up Your WordPress Site

Create a full WordPress site backup using Duplicator or another backup plugin. This ensures that you can restore your site if something goes wrong.

Step 2: Update Category and Comment Counts

To fix the issue, you must run a simple script that recalculates and updates the counts. Here’s how:

Open a plain text editor like Notepad and paste the following PHP code:

<?php

include(“wp-config.php”);

$myConnection = mysqli_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD);

if (!mysqli_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD)) { die(‘Could not connect: ‘ . mysqli_error()); }

if (!mysqli_select_db($myConnection, DB_NAME)) { die(‘Could not connect: ‘ . mysqli_error()); }

$result = mysqli_query($myConnection, “SELECT term_taxonomy_id FROM “.$table_prefix.”term_taxonomy”);

while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)) {

  $term_taxonomy_id = $row[‘term_taxonomy_id’];

  $countresult = mysqli_query($myConnection, “SELECT count(*) FROM “.$table_prefix.”term_relationships WHERE term_taxonomy_id = ‘$term_taxonomy_id'”);

  $countarray = mysqli_fetch_array($countresult);

  $count = $countarray[0];

  mysqli_query($myConnection, “UPDATE “.$table_prefix.”term_taxonomy SET count = ‘$count’ WHERE term_taxonomy_id = ‘$term_taxonomy_id'”);

}

$result = mysqli_query($myConnection, “SELECT ID FROM “.$table_prefix.”posts”);

while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)) {

  $post_id = $row[‘ID’];

  $countresult = mysqli_query($myConnection, “SELECT count(*) FROM “.$table_prefix.”comments WHERE comment_post_ID = ‘$post_id’ AND comment_approved = 1”);

  $countarray = mysqli_fetch_array($countresult);

  $count = $countarray[0];

  mysqli_query($myConnection, “UPDATE “.$table_prefix.”posts SET comment_count = ‘$count’ WHERE ID = ‘$post_id'”);

}

?>

1. Replace DB_HOST, DB_USER, and DB_PASSWORD with your WordPress database credentials. These can be found in your wp-config.php file or your hosting control panel.
2. Save this file as comments-fix.php on your computer.
3. Upload the file to your WordPress site’s root directory using an FTP client or your hosting file manager.
4. In your web browser, visit the file you uploaded: https://yourwebsite.com/comments-fix.php. Replace yourwebsite.com with your actual domain.
5. The script will run and update the counts for your categories, tags, and comments.

Step 3: Remove the Script

Once the script has been executed, delete the comments-fix.php file from your server to prevent any security risks.