This is a bit time consuming, but I think it’s the best solution without getting into the DB and possibly screwing something up.
Dashboard -> Posts -> Edit
You’ll have to simply go page by page for this.
On each page, check all of the posts that you want to bulk edit (i.e. – all posts that have categories of backpacking-#). In the ‘Bulk Actions’ drop-down menu, select ‘Edit’ and then push the button directly to the right that says ‘Apply.’ You should get a small window will all your posts in the one side and then the next box would be a list of categories. Check the category that you want to apply to all those posts.
After that, you will see that all your posts will now have TWO categories. One being backpacking-# and the other being JUST backpacking. Don’t worry, I will get to that in a second.
Keep doing this for all posts, go page by page. Once you’re done, go to Posts -> Categories for editing those. Simply check all the bad categories (i.e. anything like backpacking-#) and bulk delete them. They should all disappear from those posts now.
I hope that makes sense. Like I said, this seems like the easiest solution without getting into the DB. I’ve tried changing things in the DB by hand before and it messes things up most of the time because there are a lot of table associations that you don’t know about.
Rich do you know how to use PHPMYADMIN?…
I might be able to make a script that updates the database and fixes that for you, but as charlie mentioned there may be some relational ties across database tables, in which case it’s more then i’d care to do…
If you’re comfortable in using PHPMYADMIN then please do the following.
1. Open PHPMYADMIN
2. Select the WordPress database, by clicking on it on the left
3. Click the Search tab from the right (it has a little magnifying class next to it)
4. Type in, lets say “backpacking-2” in the search field (without quotes)
5. Just below the text “Inside table(s):” click on “Select All” so all tables are selected.
6. Now click “Go” (down to the right).
Wait a few moments for the search results.. you should get something like this.
Search results for “backpacking-2” at least one of the words: 0 match(es) inside table wp_comments
0 match(es) inside table wp_links
0 match(es) inside table wp_options
0 match(es) inside table wp_postmeta
0 match(es) inside table wp_posts
0 match(es) inside table wp_term_relationships
0 match(es) inside table wp_term_taxonomy
0 match(es) inside table wp_terms
0 match(es) inside table wp_usermeta
0 match(es) inside table wp_users
Accept yours should actually have results, and i’d like to see how many to see how deep the problem goes…
If it’s literally only a few results, i might be able to make a basic script to fix it for you (as in re-write the incorrect names to the correct ones)… that really depends how deep the naming relationship goes though…
Hi t31os and charlieholder,
Thank you for your suggestions. I’m afraid that I’m too much of a neophyte to get into the DB. I did go to Dashboard, post, edit and see that the listings of categories looks ok. So this may be different then how I explained.
So…. looking at the Dashboard -> At a Glance -> Categories, I have 1314 listed. I then went to Dashboard -> Posts -> Categories. That lists all the backpacking-1, backpacking-2, backpacking-3, etc. Under that listing, I can only delete. It also shows 0 posts for each one listed.
I went back to my .com site and looked at dashboard->Posts->Categories. That lists only Backpacking once with 61 posts.
I do admire anyone who can understand the problem without viewing it on screen. Did I perhaps do something wrong during exporting?
Sounds to me like all the posts have ended up in the “Uncatergorized” category but all the while created multitudes of empty categories.
I could be wrong…
Click on Posts > then click Edit (on any single post)…
Look to the right and see which categories (in a small sidebar like box) are currently checked for the post.
No need to save or make changes, this is simply a matter of seeing what category is assigned to a given post.
