Botched wordpress transfer results in 500 Server Error

  • Resolved BirdInTheCity

    (@birdinthecity)


    11 years, 1 month ago

    Today, I (stupidly) tried to transfer my wordpress installation from one location to another without fully reading the directions and it has resulted in 500 Server Error.

    Previously on my shared hosting account, I had my sub-domain https://www.ukstudentsonbroadway.com pointing to my main domain https://www.studentsonbroadway.com with wordpress configured at the base directory. WordPress was configured to show the ‘uk’ url and that was working fine.

    Today, I had hoped to split the ties between the 2 domains create two distinct copies of the same site (with one in a subfolder and the other remaining at the root directory on the shared server).

    Steps I took:
    1) I pointed the ‘UK’ site to a subfolder on the shared server.
    2) I had to reset the password to my mySQL account.
    3) I added the updated mySQL password in my wp-config.php file.
    4) I referenced this document about where it says to edit your mySQL database and change the ‘siteurl’ and ‘home’ variables to point to their new location (www.studentsonbroadway.com).

    Since I didn’t actually move any files, I assumed that the site would load on studentsonbroadway.com and then I would do a new installation for the uk subfolder. But after making the changes, I’m just getting a 500 Internal Server Error.

    I tried retracing my steps and undoing the domain assignments, but haven’t had any luck with that. Does anyone have advice on other things I could try? It’s hard to dianose with just a 500 server error.

    If that doesn’t work is there a way for me to transfer the content of the site to a new installation? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • Firstly, which site has a 500 error?

    Its probably not a database access issue, because if it were, you’d see “Error establishing database” instead of a 500 error. So that means your password isn’t the problem, at least for now.

    If you did change the siteurl and home fields in the database properly, and your hosting control panel is pointing the domain to the right place, I have a hard time seeing what the problem is.

    If the uk site is the one with the issue, do you have any files in there? If not, create index.html and just put some test text in there to see if it shows up in the browser.

    One other thought– you may want to look at wordpress subdirectory multisite networks instead of two separate installs.

    Hope that helps.

    Did you set up a separate database for the second site, or are they both pointing to the same database?

    Thread Starter BirdInTheCity

    (@birdinthecity)

    Crisis averted! ??

    The problem was that when I was updating wp-config.php, the damn auto-correct features in Apple’s notepad turned my single-quote mark into an apostrophe (which PHP didn’t like). Curses Apple!

    For others, I highly recommend submitting your php file to a syntax checker. That picked out the problem right away.

    @b — Thanks for the suggestion about the multisite, I’ll look into it.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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