Followed Instructions, Broke Blog – Help!

  • Resolved zkemeny

    (@zkemeny)


    17 years, 10 months ago

    I’m trying to move my blog from one host to another, so I’ve been following the instructions for Moving WordPress (See instructions that I followed below). The problem is that after step 2, “2. Go back to your OLD blog and go to options and change the url (both of them) to that of your new site.”, I can no longer access the admin features of my blog, because its thinks the address is on the new host, but when I try to change it and update it, it cant find the pages anymore because it cant find the php pages to do so! Real catch-22 eh? Also, the blog still seems to be up, but its trying to access the css from the new site location which obviously doesnt work and has multiple other problems related to confusion over location. This also means I cant access the page necessary to backup my DB since thats a plugin. Is there any way I can recover my old settings?? I need the old blog to run until the new one is completely up and running, and if I’d known this procedure would result in this I certainly would have tried an alternate route.

    thanks for any help,

    .z

    INSTRUCTIONS FROM WORDPRESS
    ————
    If You Want Your Old Blog To Still Work

    Caution: Make sure you have a backup of your old blog’s WordPress database before proceeding!

    Part A – Activating Your New Blog

    1. Download your entire WordPress installation to your hard drive. Name the folder appropriately to indicate that this is your OLD blog’s installation.
    2. Go back to your OLD blog and go to options and change the url (both of them) to that of your new site.
    3. Again, download your entire WordPress installation to your hard drive. Name the folder appropriately to indicate that this is your NEW blog’s installation.
    4. Download your database once again (but keep the old one). Upload this database to your new server. It will be easiest if you use the same database name and you create a user with the same login credentials on your new server as on your old server.
    5. If you used a different database name and/or user (see previous step), edit wp-config.php in your NEW blog’s installation folder appropriately.
    6. Upload the NEW blog’s installation folder to your new site. Presto, your NEW blog should be working!

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

  • No, no, no.

    Those WordPress instructions are for moving WordPress within your *current server*. If you’re moving hosts, this is *not* going to work.

    Think of it this way – your host is your house. You want to move your bedroom (blog) from the room it’s currently in to the room across the hall (new directory).

    What *you* are trying to do is like selling your house and totally moving out – nothing you had there is remaining anymore. What you are describing is like you’ve sold your house and moved elsewhere, but you still want your bedroom in the old house – make sense?

    When you change hosts, you have to reinstall WordPress on your new hosting account (on the new server). If you want to retain your old posts from your old account, you need to backup your database. When you go to your new installation, you can import your saved stuff from the old host.

    Thread Starter zkemeny

    (@zkemeny)

    The instructions came from the following section, which is titled “Moving WordPress to a New Server”. I assumed that they meant a different server, and not your “current server” as you phrase it. If nothing else, its a somewhat unclear title for a section, since a lot of people might be unclear on the distinctions between “server” and “host”…

    —————-
    Moving WordPress to a New Server

    If you are moving WordPress from one server to another, begin by backing up your data. This includes backing up your WordPress database as well as all the core files, images, plugins, and other files on your site. See WordPress Backups and Backing Up Your Database for more details.

    * Note: If you are changing to a new server but same domain, all you need to do is edit wp-config.php and upload everything as it is to your new server.

    If You Don’t Care If Your Old Blog Works

    1. Download a copy of the main wordpress files from your OLD blog to your hard drive and edit wp-config.php to suit the new server.
    2. Go back to your OLD blog and go to options and change the url (both of them) to that of your new site.
    3. Again, download your database (but keep the old one just in case), upload this new database and the copy of the wordpress core files with the edited wp-config.php to your new server. Thats it!

    If You Want Your Old Blog To Still Work

    Caution: Make sure you have a backup of your old blog’s WordPress database before proceeding!

    Part A – Activating Your New Blog

    1. Download your entire WordPress installation to your hard drive. Name the folder appropriately to indicate that this is your OLD blog’s installation.
    2. Go back to your OLD blog and go to options and change the url (both of them) to that of your new site.
    3. Again, download your entire WordPress installation to your hard drive. Name the folder appropriately to indicate that this is your NEW blog’s installation.
    4. Download your database once again (but keep the old one). Upload this database to your new server. It will be easiest if you use the same database name and you create a user with the same login credentials on your new server as on your old server.
    5. If you used a different database name and/or user (see previous step), edit wp-config.php in your NEW blog’s installation folder appropriately.
    6. Upload the NEW blog’s installation folder to your new site. Presto, your NEW blog should be working!

    Don’t quote long page from the Codex: we know where it is and a link is enough.

    To fix your “old” blog:
    https://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/site-url/

    After that describe briefly what you did and what didn’t work on the new site/host/server. (no quotes)

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • The topic ‘Followed Instructions, Broke Blog – Help!’ is closed to new replies.