# Does "Process bulk actions in batches" apply to splitting topics?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/does-process-bulk-actions-in-batches-apply-to-splitting-topics/168772
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** bulk-actions
**Created:** [October 30, 2020, 5:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/does-process-bulk-actions-in-batches-apply-to-splitting-topics/168772 "2020-10-30T17:18:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Canapin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/canapin/32/119591_2.png) [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2020, 5:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/does-process-bulk-actions-in-batches-apply-to-splitting-topics/168772/1 "2020-10-30T17:18:27Z")

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[https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-2-6-0-beta5-release-notes/168756](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-2-6-0-beta5-release-notes/168756)

> ### Process bulk actions in batches
> 
> Previously if staff attempted to bulk update a large number of topics, the process could time out. We now process bulk actions in smaller batches to avoid such errors.
> 
> ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/4/a/4a40b0e0fd8748dbd7ad790a41c015b751707e46.png)

Does it affect topics splitting?  
Since my migration, I have a 30000 replies topic that I can’t split because it timeouts.

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### Author: ![jomaxro](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jomaxro/32/126216_2.png) [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2020, 5:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/does-process-bulk-actions-in-batches-apply-to-splitting-topics/168772/2 "2020-10-30T17:26:20Z")

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Good question, I’m not sure. I don’t think so, but @gerhard should be able to confirm. Do you have a bug/support topic here on Meta for the topic split timeouts?

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### Author: ![gerhard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/gerhard/32/119479_2.png) [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2020, 5:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/does-process-bulk-actions-in-batches-apply-to-splitting-topics/168772/3 "2020-10-30T17:28:36Z")

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No, it doesn’t affect topic splitting (moving posts). Only bulk actions like closing topics, changing category,…

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Canapin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/canapin/32/119591_2.png) [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2020, 5:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/does-process-bulk-actions-in-batches-apply-to-splitting-topics/168772/4 "2020-10-30T17:30:41Z")

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Various actions on megatopics would cause timeouts on my forum: [502 errors when renaming large (by topic count) categories](https://meta.discourse.org/t/502-errors-when-splitting-topic-moving-or-renaming-categories/164107), including renaming a category.

I’ve tested these actions on a lot of categories, the action durations correlated with the number of topics/posts from the categories

I had to rename a few categories by updating the database fields from the command line instead of editing the category settings inside Discourse’s interface.

I have been able to split the megatopics after a lot of tries, but not the largest one though I didn’t try since my migration 1 month ago.