Can't log in to dashboard; previous solutions don't work

I forgot to mention that I tested figaro’s procedure by transferring a site from my test server to my local computer running MAMP, and it worked flawlessly — it displayed and word perfectly, and I could log into the dashboard.

Rename .htaccess file as looks like permalinks are redirecting

Thank you, but it sadly made no difference. I renamed .htaccess to hta (no dot) and I still couldn’t log into the dashboard on two different machines.

have tried and cleared your cache and cookies

Ah, I forgot to mention that in my list. Yes, and plus I have enough browsers and machines here that I keep trying them on combinations that have never seen the site before, and I can’t log in with any of them.

Transfer between servers you say…. are you using the same hostname, and has it propagated yet?

Depending on what type of server you are using, if you log into your control panel albeit, c-panel, remote desktop, or plesk and attempt to view your site right off your server does it work?

I am not certain what the “tutorial” for transferring sites is, however, you only need to “dump” your database, and then “restore” on your new server with a wordpress blog to have the site come back live…

try doing a “dnslookup” and see what the IP address (or which) is mapped to your domain name…

Just a quick couple of hints…

The test server and the final server have totally different host names, and they’ve both been around for more than a year. I’m actually replacing the files of an existing site.

I tried logging in with the shared host’s IP address, my username, and wp-admin, I get the same result — no error, but it just reloads the login page.

The tutorial said exactly that: dump the database, all the WordPress files, and restore them on the new site. It worked perfectly for me once with the same WordPress site, but on a different destination host.

Thanks for replying!

As a bit more information, I just did a fresh, empty install of WordPress on the destination server, and I can log in to the dashboard just fine. So now my WordPress site transfer skills are suspect, though I did do it once before for the same site, just a different destination, and today I followed the tutorial step by step to be sure I didn’t mess anything up. I did change the over 3000 occurrences of the test site domain name in the MySQL database dump to the destination domain name, and the site worked perfectly for visitors; there just wasn’t a way to get to the dashboard.

Wait a minute… you transferred a WordPress database from one domain to another domain? You cannot do that…

How did you transfer the files? Did you use WordPress Import/Export or did you move the database?

If you moved the database, it still has the old hostname in it and it will never work if the original site is now “down”…

In other words, you can’t take the database from your-original-site.com and simply use it in your-new-site.com as the sitemeta is set-up for the first domain…

You have a lot of work (well not really) to do on the original database… you need to modify the wp-options table, the sitemeta table just to name two…

That is why I asked you to do a dnslookup…

Does this make sense to you?

IF you have the original database on your PC (I am guessing you downloaded to your PC before you “restored” it to the new server/database)…

Anyway, if you have the database on your PC, open it with NotePad ++

Do a find and replace using your orignal site name (search for https://www.first.com and replace with https://www.second.com)

Next, right at the very top, you will see the original database name. The easiest thing to do is, create an empty database on your new server, using the same db name, db username, and db password.

Once you have that completed, and have changed the site name to the new site name as above, save the file, and restore the corrected file to your new site…

NOTE: MAKE A COPY OF YOUR ORIGINAL DATABASE BEFORE YOU MAKE THE MODIFICATIONS

Once you have made the changes, the -wp-options, blogs, sitemeta, etc will be updated with your new domain name…

I copied the entire site files from the test site and uploaded them to the root of the destination site, then exported the entire MySQL database from the test site, changed all the occurrences of the test site domain names to the destination domain name in the .sql file, and then imported it to the destination MySQL database, changed wp-config.php to have the destination MySQL information (I get no database connection error message, and the site works perfectly for visitors).

I searched through the entire .sql file after my modifications and the test site’s domain name is eradicated; all replaced by the destination domain name.

The tutorial claims it works, I actually made it work, just to a different host.

EDIT: to a different test host, I mean.

EDIT 2: I just saw your new reply. Yes, I did that, though instead of making the new database name the same as the old (the destination server forces a prefix to the name), I modified wp-config.php to have the new database’s information. I get no database connection errors.

Do a find and replace using your orignal site name (search for https://https://www.first.com and replace with https://https://www.second.com)

Disregard that… do a search for www.first.com and replace with www.second.com (ignore the http as, it will replace all instances referring to your original domain name…

Listen I cannot get this thing to post a url with it throwing the http in front of it… do a search and replace with the old site name and replace with new site (domain name) WITHOUT the HTTP://

Yup; I did precisely that: I replaced all 3300+ occurrences of the test site’s domain name with the destination site’s domain name in the .sql file from the test site before importing it to the destination site.

what it the new “prefix” the server is using? You will have to do a find and replace with the original prefix, and replace it with the new prefix and you should be fine…

The only other solution would be to, make a clean install, and use the WordPress Import/Export tool (if the old site is still there)…

What are you using to do the DB move? MyPHPAdmin or MySQL Tools/Workbench? The Workbench will do the migration for you, just plugin the new prefixes etc and bada bing…

If you are using MyPHPAdmin, then you will have to go into the imported daabase, and manually change prefixes, etc…

What’s the url to your new site? What’s the “new” prefix that they are forcing you to use? If you have that information, and would link to zip the .sql file, I can see if I can work-up the fix for you…