Image Files missing after moving to new server 403 error on Import

  • Resolved MarsHottentot

    (@marshottentot)


    14 years, 4 months ago

    Hello all. Okay, so the deal is this: My employer wanted a culture blog last year, and this year decided he wanted a simpler, more direct blog – but wanted to keep the old culture blog and move it to it’s own domain.

    So I made two new blogs – the new simpler one in the space in the FTP that used to hold the culture blog, and an entirely new directory for the culture blog.

    I backed up the entire old blog, downloaded an XML file before deleting the culture blog and when the new WP installation was finished I put all of the necessary files – excepting the old wp-config file and a few others that would direct the application to look at the old address to the new directory in the FTP.

    Everything looks great, the XML file allowed me to get my tags and and posts and all, but something went wrong – my images were not appearing. During a re-import of the XML file, I noticed that when it came to directing where WP should look for image files the following message came everytime:

    Remote file error: Remote file returned error response 403 Forbidden

    So I looked around and noticed some things I had missed – my .sql and htaccess files.

    So, being the clever idiot I am, I figured that all that needs to be done is for the backup to reflect the new address, right?

    So I opened the XML file in Dreamweaver and replaced the old address with the new one.

    That didn’t work.

    The only thing I can think that is causing the issue now is that .sql file – the new one has been replaced by the old file. The problem here is – I don’t have those crucial first 9 digits that come before the sql database name that would have been in the fresh install as I didn’t think that I’d need to backup a blank blog.

    I’m guessing, if I had these, my problems would end!

    Or am I, as usual, looking far deeper than I should? Thank you in advance for any advice you may give!

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • You said you opened the XML file in Dreamweaver and replaced the old address with the new one. Did you check the image URLs before and after that change to see if the image references are correct? Did you verify that the images are present in the wp-content/uploads/ directory?

    Thread Starter MarsHottentot

    (@marshottentot)

    Yes. And the first two times I did it incorrectly – once had an extra backslash and the next time I spelled the URL wrong – that’s me in crisis mode!

    Now it goes mysite.com/wp-content/uploads/year/month/image.jpg. I kept it ‘ugly’ as the blog is one small part of my job and I just try to keep its maintenance minimal.

    I really think losing that sql file is what messed this up, as the address change should have fixed it, correct?

    Before I moved my site I had a similar issue regarding images and the problem was in the htaccess file – a problem I ended up farming out and paying to get fixed (the third party I paid found the htaccess problem – not me I was stumped).

    Heres the site. If you click on the first image box / area the image appears – but only because I linked it in the post editor.

    Thank you for taking the time to help me!

    Thread Starter MarsHottentot

    (@marshottentot)

    Okay, I just checked the site and when you hover on the images they are still pointing to the old address. What file do I need to edit inside of WP beyond the XML WP backup? If I can can figure that out – this topic will be resolved, I think!

    Thread Starter MarsHottentot

    (@marshottentot)

    “If I can can”
    lol. You don’t wanna see that!

    Thread Starter MarsHottentot

    (@marshottentot)

    Anyone?

    Thread Starter MarsHottentot

    (@marshottentot)

    Okay, a bit of an update. I tried uploading a new image to see what happens and it does this strange redirect which may give some insight as to what is going wrong here:

    When uploading an image, the link URL is https://mysite.com/?attachment_id=3632 which, when clicked takes you to an entirely new blog page for said image. When clicking on that image, then the image is opened (in Shadowbox) with the correct address https://mysite.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/0-587-062495-the-image-i-speak-of-204x300.jpg.

    Does this illuminate anything, folks?

    Thread Starter MarsHottentot

    (@marshottentot)

    Just an update on how I fixed the issue, since I saw that someone had come to my site from here. I used the Broken Link Checker which allowed me to – manually, one by one, redirect every single image on the site. It took a long time, but the point is, it worked.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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