Unable to clone instance or apply SmartUpdates on WP Toolkit in Plesk: Smart Update was unable to correctly clone your website for further analysis

Renan Poss Moreira

Updated January 13, 2026 19:01

kb: bug kb: fixed ext: wptk Plesk Obsidian for Linux ABT: Group A

Applicable to:

The following error comes up when trying to clone a WordPress instance at Domains > example.com > Click on Clone or making Smart Update.

PLESK_ERROR: Smart Update was unable to correctly clone your website for further analysis. Please try again later.
The following message can be found in /var/log/plesk/panel.log with debug mode enabled:

CONFIG_TEXT: What broke when cloning WordPress instance #12 ('https://example.com'):
Page relative uri: /terms-and-conditions/
shortcode
...

Product issue:

#EXTWPTOOLK-5569 "Smart Updates no longer fail to analyze the site due to incorrect shortcode detection."
Fixed in:
- WP Toolkit 5.5.1 21 July 2021

Please consider updating your server:

If update is not possible for some reason you may try the following

workaround

As a workaround, follow these steps:

Connect to the server via SSH.
Edit file /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/panel.ini. Add the following lines:

[ext-wp-toolkit]
smartUpdateInitialCheckEnabled = false
Log into Plesk and run Smart Update for affected instances in Plesk again.
After successful update revert the changes back by removing or commenting the line with ";" in /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/panel.ini as below:

[ext-wp-toolkit]
;smartUpdateInitialCheckEnabled = false