Live to local – widgets not appearing?

  • I have a live WP site, witha fair number of plugins, and a 3.3 update waiting to happen. So, not to mess everything up, I want to copy it to my local Xampp. Everything works, except the widget never appear for some reason.

    I have tried the usual way, copying files to directory and making changes in the database to reflect the url change. Everything works except the widgets.

    So, I thought it was probably something to do with the actual messing about with the database, and I decided to set up a virtual host and just use the backed up database https://www.mysite.com – > localhot. Did it, and the same thing is happening.

    After tinkering with it I noticed that disabling Lazy Widget Loader plugin fixes the widget issue, but I am still having problems with certain plugins and the look and feel of the ?age.

    The files are from the backup of home directory and the database is the backup, both from cPanel. How is it possible that it’s behaving like this? Why can’t I make a duplicate site?

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  • I’ve been down this route before.

    It’s because Widgets are stored as a serialized array and the Domain name is stored in the array as a string with a set known length.

    PHP will puke because the string length has changed in the serialized array when you migrate your site.

    You must keep the domain name exactly the same. If you are on a mac use Gasmask or VirtualHostX so you can change your hosts file to the same name. Otherwise edit your hosts file manually:

    www.mysite.com 127.0.0.1 # without the https:// ( that's the editor playing up )

    I found this post here after a quick Google to help.
    https://theandystratton.com/2011/lost-widgets-when-migrating-domains-server

    Good luck!

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