Background
For some valid reasons, you might want to stop an ongoing export/import because you might have selected the wrong export options or simply want to cancel it. These procedures should work for both Prime Mover FREE and PRO versions.
Step 1 – Refresh the browser tab
Just refresh the browser tab where the export or import is ongoing. This sends a signal to PHP to stop the export processing work.
Step 2 – Close the browser tab
This officially closes any remaining browser tab sessions.
Step 3 – Logout from the WordPress admin
Logging out will send a signal to WordPress that its session is over.
Step 4 – Close the browser itself
This will close all sessions started by the browser, so there is no way it can still send requests to WordPress.
Step 5 – Cleanup to regain free space
After stopping your export, your server will have artifacts, chunks, and incomplete packages, which can appear corrupted in your package manager. It is recommended that all of this (including its folders) be deleted. You can refer to this detailed cleanup procedure to regain free space on your server after the canceled export.
Step 6 – [Optional] Restart your server
If the export is canceled and has already been running for a very long time, PHP might have several queued processes. This is true if the exported site is very large and takes a lot of time to complete. In this case, it is recommended to restart the server so PHP will cancel all of these queued processes.
This can be done easily with any hosting web panel or control panel. If you are on VPS/Dedicated hosting, your hosting control panel should allow you to restart your server easily, or you can even do it on the command line if you are comfortable with it.
If you are in a shared hosting environment – some hosts only allow you to stop all running processes, such as Hostinger hosting, which has this feature called “Stop running processes“:
Stopping all running processes should be enough to cancel all queued PHP processes. If you cannot find any of these features in your hosting, don’t worry—this step is optional.
Step 7 – Start the export or import again
Finally, log in to your WordPress site and go to Prime Mover export. Since all temp files are deleted and you have stopped all previous running processes, it should be OK now to start another export to create the packages.
Contact technical support
If you have issues cancelling the export or you want technical assistance, please contact us.
Last updated: November 30, 2024