Cancel a static export that is not able to complete

If during a Simply Static generation of your site the export process is running continuously and not able to complete, it may be possible that an error has occurred that is preventing the wp-cron job, created by Simply Static, from being removed. Simply Static uses wp-cron to schedule and manage the static export of your site. If an error is encountered during this process the task may not be able to finish correctly causing the cron scheduler to continue running the job.

As a first step, you can try canceling the export using the "Cancel Export" button that appears while Simply Static is processing an export.

Location of the Simply Static cancel export button
Screenshot showing the location of the "Cancel Export" button

If the clicking the "cancel export" button does not allow the export to stop, you could explore using a plugin like WP Crontrol to view and delete the wp-cron job "wp_archive_creation_job_cron" added by Simply Static. This entry is added to the wp-cron scheduler when a static generation is requested.

Below is a link to more information on WP Crontrol:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-crontrol/

To stop the static export using WP Crontrol:

  • Install the WP Crontrol plugin
  • Navigate to Tools > Cron Events in the WordPress dashboard
  • Hover over the entry titled "wp_archive_creation_job_cron" this will cause actions to appear under the title
  • Click the "Pause this hook" action to pause the cron job
  • When the job has been paused, hover over the entry again and this time click the "delete" action to remove it
Screenshot showing wp-cron task added by Simply Static during export