2 million records in wp_options

It should be safe to remove them, but make sure to back up that table before you do anything, just in case.

As for where they are coming from, look for a pluign (or possibly even your theme) that relates in some way to ‘pmxi’. There’s something in your site that’s adding those values in and not deleting them.

I know almost nothing about the WordPress database, but logic suggests you have (or have had) a plugin leaving sessions behind that should have expired. I am not a coder, but I think the second link here might be helpful (or at least insightful):
https://www.google.com/search?q=_pmxi_session_+a%3A0%3A{}

Oops, catacaustic knows!

Thanks both,

I have found the culprit and it was a widget linked to a plugin. I will go ahead and delete the unwanted records, backing up first of course!

Readbelow,

The exact thing has happened to me.

What is the name of the widget that was causing the problem?

Hi Moneytones, it looks to me like it is was WP All import. And unfortunately deleting the tables proved fruitless as they returned pretty sharpish upon refreshing the site!

Still looking in to this one.

Hello Readbelow,

I figured out my problem. Basically, it was woocommerce wishlist. Somehow it was creating wishlists for bots and the table grew to over 1million records in the course of a few months. It really bogged the server down whenever trying to do a complex function.

I cleaned the table and required login for wishlists. Seems to be working so far…

Have you tried deleting wp all import?

Unfortunately we rely on wp all import for a couple of xml feeds coming in via cron jobs.

However I have been playing around with the dev database and it looks like I am getting somewhere as the rows I am deleted are staying deleted. I don’t think the issue was with the WP All import I believe it was one of the jobs set up to work with and a custom built widget. I have deleted this widget and no more records are being added!

Fingers crossed.

Glad you got somewhere with yours.