Imports stuck, slow, or missing documents Pro

One-click migrations (Documents → Import & Export → Migrate) run in the background so a large library never ties up your browser. That background design is also the source of most "it’s stuck" reports — here’s how it actually behaves and what to check.

How an import runs

The import processes your source plugin’s library in small time-budgeted chunks driven by wp-cron, with its position saved after every chunk. One import runs at a time, a lock prevents two copies racing, and each imported document is stamped with a source marker — which is why re-running an import never creates duplicates and an interrupted import resumes where it left off.

"The progress number hasn’t moved"

Background chunks fire with WordPress cron, which only runs when your site gets traffic. On a quiet staging site, an import can sit still simply because nothing has visited. Three fixes, any one of which works:

• Open any wp-admin page — if the scheduled event was dropped, FileDeck re-arms it on the next admin view and the import continues.
• Visit the site’s front end a few times.
• If your host disables WP cron in favour of a real cron job (DISABLE_WP_CRON), make sure that server cron is actually firing — that’s the thing driving the chunks.

"Documents are missing after the import"

Check these in order:

1. Are they drafts? If you chose "import as drafts" (a good idea), everything is waiting under Documents → Drafts for review — publish them when you’re happy.
2. Is the source plugin still active? The importer reads the old plugin’s data in place, so it should stay active until the import finishes. Deactivating it mid-import pauses progress until it’s back (nothing is lost — the import resumes).
3. Does the source item have what the importer moves? Each importer card lists exactly what comes across for that plugin — for example, some source plugins keep no per-document download counts or access rules, so there’s nothing to migrate for those fields. The migration guide for your specific plugin spells out the mapping.

"I ran it twice by accident"

That’s fine. The source markers mean already-imported documents are skipped, not duplicated. Re-running is also the right move after adding new documents to the old plugin — only the new ones come across.

CSV imports behave differently

A CSV import is driven by your file rather than the old plugin’s database — if rows are skipped, the import report says which and why (usually a missing title or an unreachable file URL). Fix the rows and re-import; existing documents aren’t duplicated.

Still stuck? Email support@getfiledeck.com with the source plugin’s name and roughly how many documents it found — that number appearing on the Migrate card is the quickest health check.