Title: duplicate tables
Last modified: August 22, 2016

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# duplicate tables

 *  Resolved [Sonja London](https://wordpress.org/support/users/summit/)
 * (@summit)
 * [11 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/duplicate-tables/)
 * I seem to have 2 sets of wordfence tables in a few of my sites. One is lowercase,
   the other mixed (camelcase?). Here is one example:
    - `wp_wfbadleechers`
    - `wp_wfBadLeechers`
 * How do I:
    - Determine which is in use?
    - Clean it up?
    - Prevent this from happening again?
 * Any idea whether this was caused by some changes in WordFence or operating system
   differences when moving the site?
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/)

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

 *  [WFSupport](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wfsupport/)
 * (@wfsupport)
 * [11 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/duplicate-tables/#post-5437265)
 * Hi
 * Did you reinstall the WF plugin and do a database import when moving the site?
 * tim
 *  Thread Starter [Sonja London](https://wordpress.org/support/users/summit/)
 * (@summit)
 * [11 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/duplicate-tables/#post-5437306)
 * We have tried uninstalling & reinstalling.
 * The import failed. That was where we discovered the duplicate tables. We used
   Duplicator on linux host with live site to create the .zip for import to DesktopServer.
 * We had previously used DesktopServer to deploy directly from windows to live 
   linux host.
 * I am still not clear at which point the duplicate tables appeared, but it appears
   related to the fact that the WordFence tries to create tables using mixed case
   names. Mixed case table names are NOT supported on all combinations of OS/MySQL
   engine choice. While this may work if databases are never moved between OSs, 
   this is problematic when moving databases from one OS to another.
 * Here is an excerpt form the MySQL manual:
 * >  By default, table aliases are case sensitive on Unix, but not so on Windows
   > or Mac OS X. …
   > To avoid problems caused by such differences, it is best to adopt a consistent
   > convention, such as always creating and referring to databases and tables using
   > lowercase names. This convention is recommended for maximum portability and
   > ease of use.
 *  [WFSupport](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wfsupport/)
 * (@wfsupport)
 * [11 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/duplicate-tables/#post-5437308)
 * Actually the reason I asked was that if you imported the database as a whole 
   from old site to new site, then installed wordfence, maybe your desktop server
   tried to create the tables but had to change the case to create the new ones 
   because the old ones were already there. Do you happen to have a link to desktop
   server, so I know exactly what you are using?
 * Thanks
 * tim
 *  Thread Starter [Sonja London](https://wordpress.org/support/users/summit/)
 * (@summit)
 * [11 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/duplicate-tables/#post-5437309)
 * [http://serverpress.com/products/desktopserver/](http://serverpress.com/products/desktopserver/)
 *  Thread Starter [Sonja London](https://wordpress.org/support/users/summit/)
 * (@summit)
 * [11 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/duplicate-tables/#post-5437310)
 * If it helps, DesktopServer is software that adds functions to XAMPPlite like 
   export, import, VHOSTS handling and more. Like MAMP pro but better.
 *  [lhungil](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lhungil/)
 * (@lhungil)
 * [11 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/duplicate-tables/#post-5437399)
 * If using the database engine “MyISAM”, case sensitivity of database and table
   names can vary on different Operating Systems and based upon the MySQL configuration.
   REF: [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/identifier-case-sensitivity.html](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/identifier-case-sensitivity.html)
 * If using the database engine “InnoDB”, on Windows it always uses lowercase database
   and table names (irregardless of the MySQL configuration). REF: [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/innodb-restrictions.html](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/innodb-restrictions.html)
 * WordPress (and most database installation tools) will use the default database
   engine configured by the database server (unless requested otherwise). As of 
   MySQL 5.5, the default database engine is InnoDB. REF: [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/innodb-default-se.html](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/innodb-default-se.html)
 * WordFence uses camelCased tables names. Doing so complicates any database export/
   import between different database servers as case sensitivity regarding database
   and table names is not guaranteed consistent (even from UNIX to UNIX). I would
   strongly recommend future versions of WordFence use snake_case names (or all 
   lowercase names) to avoid complications.
 * In addition to server migration (from an old server to a new server), people 
   maintaining separate “live” and “development” servers to allow for testing without
   impacting the “production” website are also impacted by the use of camelCase 
   table names.
 *  Thread Starter [Sonja London](https://wordpress.org/support/users/summit/)
 * (@summit)
 * [10 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/duplicate-tables/#post-5437410)
 * Is there any chance WordFence will get rid of the troublesome camelCase names?
 *  Plugin Author [WFMattR](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wfmattr/)
 * (@wfmattr)
 * [10 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/duplicate-tables/#post-5437411)
 * It is possible that it will change in a future version, but I cannot say for 
   sure yet. Our reference number for this issue is FB1078. Windows is not officially
   supported by Wordfence, but I do see how this could be helpful for local development.
 * If you are able to exclude the Wordfence tables from the database export when
   moving from the development server to the live server, that may help for now.
   In most cases, it is best not to update the Wordfence tables on a live server
   from a dev server, since it would overwrite any recently blocked IPs and similar
   data, for events that happened after the live site was originally copied. (Of
   course, if you change any Wordfence options on the dev server, those changes 
   also would not be copied.)
 * -Matt R

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

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