Uninstalling Scalability Pro Safely
Scalability Pro never changes your content, and everything it adds can be taken back out. Deactivating and deleting are two different steps with two different jobs: deactivating switches the plugin off and keeps its indexes, deleting removes the plugin and cleans up after it. This article covers exactly what each step does.
What happens when you deactivate
Deactivating Scalability Pro:
- stops every query optimisation and rewrite, so your queries run exactly as WordPress and your other plugins would run them on their own;
- clears the scheduled events Scalability Pro registers (term recounts, the options optimiser rescan and the index schema check);
- removes the Unload Plugins mu-plugin and its policy file from
wp-content/mu-plugins, so no plugin unloading happens while Scalability Pro is off; - removes any files left behind by the retired Slow Query Log, but only files it can positively identify as its own.
Deactivating keeps the database indexes. That makes deactivation a safe way to test whether Scalability Pro is involved in a problem: reactivate and you are straight back where you were, with no index rebuild.
Because the indexes stay in place, deactivating is not a clean before-and-after test of what the indexes do. To measure that, use Drop All Indexes on the Indexes tab instead. Measuring the Performance Win covers how to take that baseline.
Settings, cache tables and stored data are all left untouched on deactivation.
What happens when you delete
Deleting Scalability Pro from the Plugins screen (or with wp plugin uninstall or wp plugin delete) runs its uninstall.php before WordPress removes the files. That cleanup:
- Drops the indexes it created, unless you have unticked Delete Scalability Pro indexes when the plugin is deleted on the Advanced tab. The setting is ticked by default. Only indexes Scalability Pro manages are dropped, matched by name and ownership, so core WordPress indexes and indexes from other plugins are left alone.
- Drops its own tables:
wp_scalability_pro_cache,wp_scalability_pro_post_count_cache,wp_scalability_pro_transient_cache,wp_spro_ajax_endpoint_observationsand, if it still exists from an older version,wp_spro_slow_query_log(your table prefix may differ fromwp_). - Deletes its options from
wp_options, including the mainwpiperf_settingsoption and thespro_-prefixed state and cache options. - Clears its scheduled events.
- Removes its file cache at
wp-content/cache/scalability-pro. - Removes the Unload Plugins mu-plugin files and any retired Slow Query Log files it can identify as its own.
Index drops run in a single pass with no time limit, so on a very large database the delete can take a while. Let it finish.
If any part of the cleanup fails, the delete stops with an error naming what could not be removed, rather than reporting success and leaving things behind silently.
Want to remove Scalability Pro but keep the indexes? Untick Delete Scalability Pro indexes when the plugin is deleted on the Advanced tab and save before you delete. The indexes are ordinary MySQL indexes with their own names, so they keep speeding up queries without the plugin installed. Custom Database Indexes explains what each one does.
What deleting does not remove
- Shared Super Speedy settings. Options shared with other Super Speedy plugins stay in place so those plugins keep working.
- Other sites in a multisite network. The cleanup removes the tables and options of the site it runs on. Subsites that used Scalability Pro keep their own copies.
Choosing between them
| You want to | Do this |
|---|---|
| Test whether Scalability Pro is involved in a problem | Deactivate, test, reactivate. The indexes stay. |
| Measure what the indexes are worth | Use Drop All Indexes on the Indexes tab, measure, then recreate them. |
| Remove Scalability Pro completely | Deactivate, then delete. |
| Remove Scalability Pro but keep the indexes | Untick the Advanced-tab setting, save, then deactivate and delete. |
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