Table of Contents
Problem Description #
Merchants worry that when they auto‑generate EANs for many products, especially in large catalogs, or after deleting old products, the plugin might generate duplicate EAN codes, causing conflicts or incorrect product identification.
Common symptoms / concerns: #
- Fear that after deleting sold‑out products, their EAN codes might be reused. WordPress.org
- Users request confirmation that the plugin won’t assign same EAN to different products after bulk generation. WordPress.org
Cause: #
- Automatic generation relies on a “seed” (product ID or a counter) if counter is reset or manually modified, there’s a risk of duplication. WordPress.org
- Without a stable seed mechanism, deletion + regeneration can overlap previous codes.
Solution: #
- When generating EAN codes automatically, ensure the “seed counter” option in Tools → Generate is not manually changed or reset. This ensures uniqueness. WordPress.org
- After generating EANs, export a full list of product IDs and EANs, maintain a backup spreadsheet to track assigned codes (especially for large catalogs).
- When deleting products, do not clear or reset the seed counter, this avoids reusing old codes.
- If you suspect duplicates: use plugin’s “search by EAN” tool (or database query) to detect repeated EAN values and manually fix them.
- For critical operations (e.g. POS, feed exports, barcode printing), test a small batch before bulk generation.
Prerequisites: #
- Latest version of EAN plugin.
- Access to plugin settings (seed counter, Tools).
Additional Notes: #
- If you operate a dynamic catalog with frequent product deletions/additions, consider generating EAN once when product is created and never regenerating automatically.
- Maintain offline backup of EAN assignments for audit and troubleshooting.
