tmp folder filling up

Hi @longliveking,

The files in the .tmp folder are likely being created when WordPress attempts to update a plugin and fails. It should be safe to delete these files; however, you should back them up first to be safe and contact Siteground to see if they can help you figure out either a way to maintain the tmp directory or see if they can assist with identifying where the update process is failing.

Let us know if you have any further questions!

Hi, thanks for your reply.

They are safe to delete, I have to do this daily across dozens of websites.
Is it right that Wordfence creates tmp files if a WordPress update fails?
Does Wordfence usually have the ability to delete it’s own tmp files?

I’m trying to work out if this is usual behaviour for Wordfence or there is something wrong and where things are going wrong.

Thanks,
Alex

Hi @longliveking,

The files are likely being created by WordPress, not by Wordfence. Could you provide a list of the files you see in the /tmp/ directory? Also, could you go to Tools > Diagnostics and click “Send Report by Email”, send the report to [email protected], and fill in your forum username in the Forum Username field.

Thanks!

Hi @wfchar,

The list of files currently:

sess_3skoa2ue8a06ohnqespq4r47r70nkhje
sess_7p7cl1qqehp6so2kt5unfup2dlvevk7a
sess_bo1jtdmomaq83qk9clsd9a40rh1fq737
sess_e378hq7stta7r0mei8df5gncapn7is9d
sess_gqq5ks27qhvn6a23h857uak6oid5gjl7
sess_lfu4ncn3nv27233lrecfprund5afoffu
sess_qogd1g1c52bibprn2jmuusi3rknb923s
wordfence.7.1.2-4xVoiV.tmp
wordfence.7.1.2-AhnInP.tmp
wordfence.7.1.2-artmZv.tmp
wordfence.7.1.2-d4uEtK.tmp
wordfence.7.1.2-I59Plb.tmp
wordfence.7.1.2-iU0h4v.tmp
wordfence.7.1.2-Kgo4zi.tmp
wordfence.7.1.2-sJhlbj.tmp
wordfence.7.1.2-TuTRtp.tmp
wordfence.7.1.2-vjdaCw.tmp
wordfence.7.1.2-Zg9jwl.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-2Gwvdr.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-4AalLr.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-6L8WAl.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-D8ARCb.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-dA3n58.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-g1jDXx.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-m4TmZR.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-MT3WCY.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-RdUthk.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-RuQ0Zw.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-vH5ACD.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-vWqJG7.tmp
wordfence.7.1.3-Xg9oOc.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-9TYDkF.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-bRFXvO.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-CorE1D.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-fUmHNH.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-kevFzw.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-MqtY14.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-NbwfSu.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-tBRDSX.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-UN5qVW.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-Vl4E6D.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-wLorQ3.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-XCW3a2.tmp
wordfence.7.1.4-zsGLKc.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-6UALdg.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-80OtUU.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-8CvjMX.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-iRWXgB.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-KW7cda.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-l20GwI.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-P0yOFl.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-rHuKO6.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-SeUmDr.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-SRFtrn.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-stlt3k.tmp
wordfence.7.1.6-WkggTf.tmp
wordfence.7.1.7-9B49eR.tmp
wordfence.7.1.7-dpLGK6.tmp
wordfence.7.1.7-ESzjGr.tmp
wordfence.7.1.7-GJhfed.tmp
wordfence.7.1.7-SeBFGg.tmp
wordfence.7.1.7-SzDQdB.tmp
wordfence.7.1.7-tsRHkx.tmp
wordfence.7.1.7-vn9beD.tmp
wordfence.7.1.7-X9RrFi.tmp
wordfence.7.1.7-Zh2wep.tmp
wordfence.7.1.7-Zk3E5i.tmp
wordfence.7.1.8-aZm0Jp.tmp
wordfence.7.1.8-HH7Pyu.tmp
wordfence.7.1.8-JKDMyf.tmp
wordfence.7.1.8-tsTfnb.tmp

I have sent the report.
Thanks for your help.

Alex

Hi Alex,

It looks like you’ve got some PHP session files left in there, too, which points toward PHP not being configured to handle cleanup in /tmp. There are two ways to tackle this moving forward:

1. See if Siteground can help you set up PHP to clean up the directory, and determine why your Wordfence updates are being interrupted. They’re completing at some point, but the temporary files aren’t being removed automatically.

2. Set up a cron task to automatically clean files in that directory. You can use something like this: find /[path to your tmp directory] -type f -maxdepth 1 -atime +0 | xargs rm -f

Let me know if you have any further questions or concerns!

Hi Alex,

Since we haven’t heard from you for a while I’m going to go ahead and resolve this thread. If you have any other questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to open a new one.

Thanks.