product categories duplicated after woocommerce update

You’re not the first to report something similar to this, however its not affecting all sites and seems to vary between taxonomies. Product categories are entirely handled by WordPress.

Please disable your plugins and see if the issue goes away – that will reveal any form of conflict.

Had the same issue with the latest WooCommerce Data Update. Ended up Restoring a back-up to go back prior to update.

Googling for a solution and stumbled on this. Will wait to see if there’s a solution before updating again.

christaplin any similarities between his install and yours?

Our report below. Similarities are outdated PHP versions at a quick glance.

### WordPress Environment ###

Home URL: https://www.dementiaworkshop.co.uk
Site URL: https://www.dementiaworkshop.co.uk
WC Version: 2.6.1
Log Directory Writable: ?
WP Version: 4.5.2
WP Multisite: –
WP Memory Limit: 256 MB
WP Debug Mode: –
WP Cron: ?
Language: en_US

### Server Environment ###

Server Info: Apache
PHP Version: ? 5.3.29 - We recommend a minimum PHP version of 5.6. See: How to update your PHP version
PHP Post Max Size: 8 MB
PHP Time Limit: 30
PHP Max Input Vars: 1000
cURL Version: 7.38.0
OpenSSL/1.0.0

SUHOSIN Installed: –
MySQL Version: ? 5.5.50 - We recommend a minimum MySQL version of 5.6. See: WordPress Requirements
Max Upload Size: 2 MB
Default Timezone is UTC: ?
fsockopen/cURL: ?
SoapClient: ? Your server does not have the SoapClient class enabled - some gateway plugins which use SOAP may not work as expected.
DOMDocument: ?
GZip: ?
Multibyte String: ?
Remote Post: ? wp_remote_post() failed. PayPal IPN won't work with your server. Contact your hosting provider. Error: Unsupported SSL protocol version
Remote Get: ?

### Database ###

WC Database Version: 2.5.5
:
woocommerce_sessions: ?
woocommerce_api_keys: ?
woocommerce_attribute_taxonomies: ?
woocommerce_downloadable_product_permissions: ?
woocommerce_order_items: ?
woocommerce_order_itemmeta: ?
woocommerce_tax_rates: ?
woocommerce_tax_rate_locations: ?
woocommerce_shipping_zones: ?
woocommerce_shipping_zone_locations: ?
woocommerce_shipping_zone_methods: ?
woocommerce_payment_tokens: ?
woocommerce_payment_tokenmeta: ?

### Active Plugins (22) ###

Remove Comments Absolutely: by Frank Bültge – 1.2.0
Akismet: by Automattic – 3.1.11
Gecka Submenu: by Gecka Apps
Gecka – 0.7.3

Google XML Sitemaps: by Arne Brachhold – 4.0.8
Imsanity: by Jason Hinkle – 2.3.6
Jetpack by WordPress.com: by Automattic – 4.0.4
MailChimp for WordPress: by ibericode – 3.1.10
RICG Responsive Images: by The RICG – 3.1.1
Testimonials: by WooThemes – 1.5.4
Cookie Consent: by Catapult_Themes – 2.0.12
White Label CMS: by www.videousermanuals.com – 1.5.7
WooCommerce Accepted Payment Methods: by jameskoster – 0.7.0
WooCommerce Print Invoice & Delivery Note: by Triggvy Gunderson – 4.1.5
WooCommerce - Store Exporter: by Visser Labs – 1.8.6
WooCommerce Sequential Order Numbers: by SkyVerge – 1.7.0
WooCommerce: by WooThemes – 2.6.1
WooDojo: by WooThemes – 1.5.4
WooSidebars: by WooThemes – 1.4.3
WooThemes Helper: by WooThemes – 1.5.2
WordPress Ping Optimizer: by Pankaj Jha – 2.34.8.5
WP Resized Image Quality: by Mike Bijon
Etch Software – 2.1.2

WP Smush: by WPMU DEV – 2.3.1

### Settings ###

Force SSL: –
Currency: GBP (￡)
Currency Position: left
Thousand Separator: ,
Decimal Separator: .
Number of Decimals: 2

### API ###

API Enabled: ?

### WC Pages ###

Shop Base: #19 - /shop/
Cart: #20 - /cart/
Checkout: #21 - /checkout/
My Account: #22 - /my-account/

### Taxonomies ###

Product Types: external (external)
grouped (grouped)
simple (simple)
variable (variable)

### Theme ###

Name: Superstore
Version: 1.1.4
Author URL: https://www.woothemes.com
Child Theme: ? – If you're modifying WooCommerce on a parent theme you didn't build personally
then we recommend using a child theme. See: How to create a child theme

WooCommerce Support: ?

### Templates ###

Overrides: superstore/woocommerce/content-product_cat.php version 1.6.4 is out of date. The core version is 2.6.1
superstore/woocommerce/single-product/tabs/description.php

: Learn how to update outdated templates

Just to be clear, are these shown in the backend as duplicates?

They were displaying in under categories twice and on the front end as duplicates too. They had the same slug etc and deleting one of the entries would delete both.

You could look in the database itself and see if there are duplicates in any of the terms tables for whatever reason. Not occurring on any test sites I have access to.

I’ve had the same issue also.

To give you some more info:

• I reverted theme back to Twenty Twelve
• All plugins were decativated, apart from WooCommerce
• Categories are duplicated on front-end and in the admin
• Category page set as ‘Display type’ > ‘Subcategories’

I’m not a developer that knows SQL properly, but looking through the database, I can only see 1 instance of each category.

System Status Report:

### WordPress Environment ###

Home URL: https://peddlerscycles.bfs004.bfhosting.co.uk
Site URL: https://peddlerscycles.bfs004.bfhosting.co.uk
WC Version: 2.6.1
Log Directory Writable: ?
WP Version: 4.5.2
WP Multisite: –
WP Memory Limit: 256 MB
WP Debug Mode: –
WP Cron: –
Language: en_GB

### Server Environment ###

Server Info: Apache
PHP Version: ? 5.3.17 - We recommend a minimum PHP version of 5.6. See: How to update your PHP version
PHP Post Max Size: 20 MB
PHP Time Limit: 30
PHP Max Input Vars: 1000
cURL Version: 7.15.5
 OpenSSL/0.9.8b

SUHOSIN Installed: –
MySQL Version: ? 5.5.28 - We recommend a minimum MySQL version of 5.6. See: WordPress Requirements
Max Upload Size: 20 MB
Default Timezone is UTC: ?
fsockopen/cURL: ?
SoapClient: ?
DOMDocument: ?
GZip: ?
Multibyte String: ?
Remote Post: ?
Remote Get: ?

### Database ###

WC Database Version: 2.6.1
:
woocommerce_sessions: ?
woocommerce_api_keys: ?
woocommerce_attribute_taxonomies: ?
woocommerce_downloadable_product_permissions: ?
woocommerce_order_items: ?
woocommerce_order_itemmeta: ?
woocommerce_tax_rates: ?
woocommerce_tax_rate_locations: ?
woocommerce_shipping_zones: ?
woocommerce_shipping_zone_locations: ?
woocommerce_shipping_zone_methods: ?
woocommerce_payment_tokens: ?
woocommerce_payment_tokenmeta: ?
MaxMind GeoIP Database: ? The MaxMind GeoIP Database does not exist - Geolocation will not function. You can download and install it manually from https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/legacy/geolite/ to the path:

### Active Plugins (1) ###

WooCommerce: by WooThemes – 2.6.1

### Settings ###

Force SSL: –
Currency: GBP (￡)
Currency Position: left
Thousand Separator: ,
Decimal Separator: .
Number of Decimals: 2

### API ###

API Enabled: ?

### WC Pages ###

Shop Base: #3 - /shop/
Basket: #4 - /basket/
Checkout: #5 - /checkout/
My Account: #6 - /my-account/

### Taxonomies ###

Product Types: external (external)
grouped (grouped)
simple (simple)
variable (variable)

### Theme ###

Name: Twenty Twelve
Version: 2.0
Author URL: https://www.ads-software.com/
Child Theme: ? – If you're modifying WooCommerce on a parent theme you didn't build personally
then we recommend using a child theme. See: How to create a child theme

WooCommerce Support: ?

### Templates ###

Overrides: –

Found and fixed here https://github.com/woothemes/woocommerce/commit/1e70bc71720d76d34d38940e5915da7e33c583c2

This will be in WC 2.6.2

Great – thank you!

Had the exact same issue.
Each duplicated category has the same slug and ID of the original category, so I’m afraid to delete them.

I saw the github link, and copied the pasted the text into my wc-term-functions.php file, and this fixed this issue. WHEW!!

Thanks Mike!

Hi, i am having the same inssue in woocommerce 3.0 updtate, can you help me?
Thank you!

Dear Binhoscc,

I also experienced same issue. Try going to your wc-terms-functions.php and find this $clauses[‘fields’] = ‘DISTINCT ‘ . $clauses[‘fields’]. ‘, tm.meta_value’;

try removing this . ‘, tm.meta_value’ and save. See if this solves your duplicate product categories.

I have 1 more issue in which if i unassigned my old product from the category that it was set, it shows out of stock even it has stock. Can you see from your side if you have this too.

Regards

Hello @dlareg08, unfortunately there was no ‘, tm.meta_value’ there.
Anything more i could do?
Thank you

Hi, I just had the same issue after updating the database in 3.0.