I have two copies of the same article on my site

Content Uploader is built to avoid duplicates, and in our tests a file uploaded twice and an item that was retried never produced two copies. When a second copy does appear, one of a few situations is behind it, and the fix is on your site, because Content Uploader never deletes content.

Symptoms#

• Your site's list of posts or articles shows the same title twice.
• A page you updated has a twin with a number on its address (my-article-2).

Likely causes#

Confirmed (by how matching works; each shows as New in the review before publishing):

1. The record IDs changed, so the rows looked like new items (every row is new).
2. No ID column, and the title or slug changed: the retitled article is a new item.
3. The article existed already on your site, written by hand or by another tool. Content Uploader only recognises items it published, so a row with the same title creates a second one.
4. The same content went to two places: two configurations for the same site and content type with different IDs, or one file published to Posts and to Pages.
5. The connector's records were deleted on your site, so the next import created the items again.

Possible: another plugin or tool on your site copies items.

Step-by-step solution#

1. Find the copy Content Uploader owns. On the Sites page, under Publishing results, find the item by its record ID: the line shows the site and WordPress ID: 41 (or Joomla ID: 7). The item with that ID is the one future uploads update.
2. Keep that one and move the other copy to the trash on your site (WordPress: Posts → All Posts; Joomla: Content → Articles).
3. Find out why it happened, from the list above. In the review of the file that created the copy, the item was listed as New.
4. Fix the cause: restore the IDs, point the configuration at the right ID column, or accept that old hand-made items are not matched (choosing the record ID).
5. If you trashed the copy that Content Uploader owns by mistake, the next file lists it as skipped (In the destination's trash…). Restore it from the trash, or delete it permanently so that the next upload creates it again (skipped items).

How to verify#

• Upload the file again: the items you cleaned up show as Unchanged.
• Your site's list shows each title once.

If it persists#

If you see two copies and both appear in the Publishing results with different IDs for the same record ID, contact support with the record ID, both site IDs and the times: that would be a fault we want to see.