Understanding disconnected media

Hi @brucekaiser,

On every run, MC identifies 27 disconnected media. NONE of them are image files.

What are they? ??

I think there are many jpg files in the library that are no longer used in content.

After the scan, you can visit the Edit Media page for an image that you think it’s not used. Media Cleaner will have added some information about how this image is used on that page.

Important: Images which are not listed have been definitely found somewhere in your WordPress. However, images which are listed have not been found (and might be somewhere – that’s why backups are required).

As a test, I used Dashboard|Media|AddNew to upload a new image (jpg) to the media library. It has never been used or attached to anything.

That’s very odd. This is how I quickly test the plugin all the time; and this never happened to me. In the logs, do you see the first section where it’s written “?? Extracting refs from content…” ? This is the part where Media Cleaner analyzes your content (and only your content). If you see the file appearing here, it means that it is actually used.

As a second test, I deleted an old POST that utilized one media image file. I expected the media file to become disconnected, but MC does not find it.

Make sure the post is not in the trash though, that might be that ?? Otherwise, it would be indeed marked as to be deleted.

Response from Server is broken

Currently, the plugin has no knows bugs, so it doesn’t break by itself; however, since the process is running through asynchronous requests, any other plugin might kill those requests. So in the PHP Error Logs, everything is important, and it will not be probably look related to Media Cleaner. But if it happens during the scan, it breaks the process.

I hope I’ll be able to help you making it work perfectly ??

As a third test, I uploaded a text file into the Media Library and left it unattached. MediaCleaner found it as expected and reported it as “Seems not in use”. So I think this has to do only with image files. Maybe.
Thanks.

The files detected are .doc, docx, and pdf files. They are all legitimate and need to be purged eventually.

I definitely find the file “thecross.jpg” listed in the “Extracting refs from content”.
I have not added this file to anything, so it must be included in some larger collection being generated automatically.
Is there any way to know what page/post was being scanned when it was detected?

On the EDIT MEDIA page for the new media file (thecross.jpg) it says:
“It seems to be used as: CONTENT #14 (URL)”.
I only find/see the automatically created permalink https://trinityvictoria.net/wp1/thecross/

BTW,
On the EDIT MEDIA page for the newly uploaded text file it says:
There is no information about this media in the Cleaner DB. It is either not in use, or the scan hasn’t been ran.
But it also has a permalink: https://trinityvictoria.net/wp1/flowers/
So I don’t think the permalink is what is being referred to above.

Thanks for helping.
Bruce

Is there any way to know what page/post was being scanned when it was detected?

Can you open your POST or PAGE which has the ID 14? That’s where it’s used ?? Note that it can be a PRODUCT or anything other post type. But that’s the idea.

It might not be in the content of that page, it might be in its metadata. If you have used plugins which have added links to that images, like a gallery or I am not sure what else ??

So I don’t think the permalink is what is being referred to above.

Your .txt is not used anywhere it seems; you would need a REAL post/page to reference this file directly. In your case, its only that file attachment page referencing its own file. So yeah, it’s not really in use here. All the images are used otherwise, because all Media entries have an attachment page.