Error: you can not change this attachment

Thanks for your report and for including the printscreens link; very helpful.

It looks like you are using the “Search Media” text box to find items matching “opel afira”, then selecting the “Delete Permanently” Bulk Action to delete the selected images in one operation; is that right? I do not see the “Bulk Actions” or “Apply” controls in your second printscreen. Am I missing something?

I believe the message in your second printscreen is a translation of “ERROR: You are not allowed to edit Attachment”. This message is issued when the logged in user does not have the “edit_post” authorization for the item in question. In your case, I believe it happens because when you clicked “Apply” to delete the items they were, in fact, deleted before you got the blank screen. Then, when you refreshed the screen you actually “retried” the delete operation and the items no longer existed.

Are you able to delete the items using the WordPress Media/Library screen, the full-screen Media/Edit Media screen or the Media/Assistant “Delete Permanently” rollover action? In other words, is it only the Bulk Action that fails in this way?

Regarding the “blank screen”, does this happen only after selecting the “Delete Permanently” Bulk Action?

It also looks like you have a multi-language plugin active; perhaps this is part of the problem. Can you tell me which plugin you are using?

Thanks for any additional information you can give me.

First of all, thanks for the super fast response and support! I appreciate it!

It looks like you are using the “Search Media” text box to find items matching “opel afira”, then selecting the “Delete Permanently” Bulk Action to delete the selected images in one operation; is that right?

Exactly right!

I do not see the “Bulk Actions” or “Apply” controls in your second printscreen. Am I missing something?

Yes, I didn’t noticed that yet. Don’t know why the bulk actions are missing.

Are you able to delete the items using the WordPress Media/Library screen, the full-screen Media/Edit Media screen or the Media/Assistant “Delete Permanently” rollover action? In other words, is it only the Bulk Action that fails in this way?

Yes I’m able to delete the images using the WordPress Media/Library. But when I select the bulk option, nothing happens there also.

Regarding the “blank screen”, does this happen only after selecting the “Delete Permanently” Bulk Action?

Yes, it only happens after selecting the ‘Delete permanently’ Bulk Action.

It also looks like you have a multi-language plugin active; perhaps this is part of the problem. Can you tell me which plugin you are using?

I’m using WPML as a multi-language plugin. I also have installed TinyPNG plugin for downsizing the images.

Hope this information is valuable to you.

Thanks for the additional information. I have run some tests using WP 4.9.4 with WPML 3.9.3 and WPML Media 2.2.3 (the current versions). I am able to use the Bulk Delete Permanently action without errors. I do see some screen refresh issues when switching languages that I will investigate further.

I do not think the “TinyPNG” plugin is involved, but you could try disabling it and re-running a test or two to rule that out. There are two “TinyPNG” plugins in the WordPress repository, one very old and one current. Are you using this one:

Compress JPEG & PNG images, by TinyPNG

Can you tell me what version of WPML, WPML Media and WP you are using?

Can you confirm that the Media/Assistant screen’s “Delete Permanently” rollover action for a single item is working for you?

I don’t see the WPML “Language Switcher” in the admin bar at the top of your printscreen. Are you trying to delete items in a specific language or in the “All Languages” mode?

Thanks for your patience and any additional details you can provide.

– WordPress version 4.9.4

WPML plugin versions:
-WPML Media 2.2.3
-WMPL CMS 1.4.22
-WMPL Multilingual CMS 3.9.3
-WPML Sticky links 1.4.3
-WPML String Translation 2.7.3
-WPML Translation Management 2.5.2

I deactivated the WPML Media plugin and now everything is working fine. So I think there is a conflict with WPML Media plugin. Can you check the compatibility?

Also I noticed the blank screen only appears when I delete more then 5 images at the same time.

the Media/Assistant screen’s “Delete Permanently” rollover action for a single item is working fine.

Thanks

Thanks for posting your WPML plugins and versions, and for answering my other questions.

You wrote “Also I noticed the blank screen only appears when I delete more then 5 images at the same time.” That suggests that the “blank screen” issue is simply a result of running out of memory before the operation is completed.

I have installed all of the WPML components you listed and run more tests. I am able to bulk delete 50 attachments at a time without errors or blank screens. However, the additional WPML plugins I added take up about 16Mb in each page load. Also, the delete operation consumes a significant amount of memory; about 1Mb per attachment on my system.

You should try to increase the amount of memory available to WordPress and see if this improves your experience. You can find some guidance in this earlier support topic:

MLA stopped working after installing Themeco X theme

As that topic suggests, try increasing the WordPress memory as described here:

Increasing memory allocated to PHP

During my testing for this topic I have made several MLA enhancements regarding the “current language” handling when WPML is active. I have uploaded a new MLA Development Version dated 20180318 with the updated code. To get the Development Version, follow the instructions in this earlier topic:

504 Time-Out issue

Skip down to the “To get…” instructions. You can ignore the example plugin instructions.

It would be great if could install the Development Version and see how it works for you. Thanks for your help with this issue.

I have released MLA version 2.72, which includes the WPML enhancements I referred to in my earlier post. I assume you have resolved the “blank screen” portion of the issues you reported.

I am marking this topic resolved, but please update it if you have any problems or further questions regarding the “Delete Permanently” functions.