I have a personal blog in Chinese, which I have been running since 2016. It is my first WordPress site. I decided to make it serve WebP images for the sake of speed. I had lots of ShortPixel credits so I ran “bulk image optimization” in the media library after installing the plugin, expecting the process would be complete after a day.

However, when I wake up, the process bar stuck at ~40%. It was so annoying, but I didn’t have any clue why – I chose to wait. Even after several days, the process bar stuck still at ~40%. I knew something was wrong.

And I wrote a backup script, so as long as a change occurs in wp-contents/uploads, the script is called, and some of my Google Drive space will be consumed. Every day I saw new backup was made for my personal Chinese blog – it was because the new WebP images were generated. But I just didn’t know why it took forever to finish.

However, today, after reviewing the reminder of ShortPixel carefully, I notice that it says, when the browser tab is closed, the bulk optimization process will be paused…

So, my bad. I shouldn’t close the browser tab (although I don’t think it makes sense because my VPS can upload the original images to ShortPixel servers, and fetch the converted optimized images?).

Today I have learned that whenever we use a product, we should read every single message it shows carefully!