It worked Pim ! Thanks for the quick reply and excellent support.
For those interested here was the solution Pim made;
Delete any backup files from the plugins. I was using UpdraftPlus, so I deleted the backups (but kept the remote backups). Exported and Upon Import, the message stayed for probably 15 seconds, then progressed like it was supposed to. Not sure why that made a difference but just glad it worked.
