Lost settings after migration

@rdadalte I wonder how you lost your settings on the dev environment as well… did you accidentally overwrite it somehow via phphMyAdmin when migrating to the production environment / new domain?… that’s one possible explanation.

As to migrating ASE settings via a DB export and then import + search-replace URL, in theory that should work… not sure what could’ve gone wrong…

From the settings array you copied, this portion:

s:18:"enable_duplication";b:1;s:32:"duplication_redirect_destination";s:4:"list"

…looks correct, ‘enable_duplication’ is true, and ‘duplication_redirect_destination’ is the posts ‘list’ screen.

However, when I try to copy the entire, serialized array into a test site via SQL Buddy plugin, into the admin_site_enhancements option, it then is saved as an empty array. This indicates that there is something broken/incorrect in the serialized array. We can confirm this when trying to unserialize it online at https://onlinephp.io/unserialize and copying your serialized array there.

Here’s a fresh settings array where only the Content Duplication module is enabled (on a test site), which can be unserialized correctly on that site:

a:153:{s:18:"enable_duplication";b:1;s:32:"duplication_redirect_destination";s:4:"list";s:13:"content_order";b:1;s:24:"enable_media_replacement";b:1;s:17:"enable_svg_upload";b:1;s:18:"enable_avif_upload";b:1;s:29:"custom_nav_menu_items_new_tab";b:1;s:20:"hide_modify_elements";b:1;s:20:"hide_ab_wp_logo_menu";b:1;s:22:"hide_ab_customize_menu";b:1;s:20:"hide_ab_updates_menu";b:1;s:21:"hide_ab_comments_menu";b:1;s:13:"hide_ab_howdy";b:1;s:25:"disable_dashboard_widgets";b:1;s:34:"disable_welcome_panel_in_dashboard";b:1;s:26:"disabled_dashboard_widgets";a:6:{s:33:"dashboard_right_now__normal__core";b:1;s:32:"dashboard_activity__normal__core";b:1;s:29:"dashboard_primary__side__core";b:1;s:33:"dashboard_quick_press__side__core";b:1;s:38:"dashboard_recent_comments__normal__low";b:1;s:35:"dashboard_site_health__normal__core";b:0;}s:16:"wider_admin_menu";b:1;s:16:"admin_menu_width";s:5:"240px";s:20:"customize_admin_menu";b:1;s:17:"custom_menu_order";s:426:"menu-dashboard,toplevel_page_x-addons-home,toplevel_page_cornerstone-launch-editor,separator1,toplevel_page_dados-do-site,menu-media,menu-posts,menu-pages,toplevel_page_wpcf7,toplevel_page_cfdb7-list,separator2,menu-appearance,menu-plugins,menu-users,menu-tools,menu-settings,separator-last,toplevel_page_edit?post_type=acf-field-group,toplevel_page_seopress-option,toplevel_page_file-monitor-admin,toplevel_page_wsal-auditlog";s:18:"custom_menu_titles";s:409:"toplevel_page_x-addons-home__Pro,toplevel_page_cornerstone-launch-editor__Cornerstone,toplevel_page_dados-do-site__Dados do site,menu-posts__Posts,toplevel_page_wpcf7__Formulários,toplevel_page_cfdb7-list__Formulários recebidos,toplevel_page_edit?post_type=acf-field-group__ACF,toplevel_page_seopress-option__SEO,toplevel_page_file-monitor-admin__File Monitoring,toplevel_page_wsal-auditlog__WP Activity Log";s:18:"custom_menu_hidden";s:0:"";s:28:"show_custom_taxonomy_filters";b:1;s:19:"enhance_list_tables";b:1;s:26:"show_featured_image_column";b:1;s:14:"show_id_column";b:1;s:20:"hide_comments_column";b:1;s:29:"various_admin_ui_enhancements";b:1;s:32:"media_library_infinite_scrolling";b:1;s:28:"display_active_plugins_first";b:1;s:24:"custom_admin_footer_text";b:1;s:24:"custom_admin_footer_left";s:0:"";s:25:"custom_admin_footer_right";s:0:"";s:17:"custom_login_slug";s:7:"backend";s:13:"login_id_type";s:8:"username";s:22:"site_identity_on_login";b:1;s:24:"enable_login_logout_menu";b:1;s:24:"enable_last_login_column";b:1;s:24:"registration_date_column";b:1;s:28:"redirect_after_login_to_slug";s:0:"";s:29:"redirect_after_logout_to_slug";s:0:"";s:16:"custom_admin_css";s:0:"";s:19:"custom_frontend_css";s:0:"";s:18:"head_code_priority";s:2:"10";s:9:"head_code";s:0:"";s:18:"body_code_priority";s:2:"10";s:9:"body_code";s:0:"";s:20:"footer_code_priority";s:2:"10";s:11:"footer_code";s:0:"";s:15:"ads_txt_content";s:0:"";s:19:"app_ads_txt_content";s:0:"";s:18:"robots_txt_content";s:120:"User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

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So, somehow, you’ve corrupted / broke the settings array during your migration procedure.

@rdadalte Apologies. Actually, copy pasting the array from SQL Buddy (database) directly to https://onlinephp.io/unserialize works, but copy pasting from the code block in my previous comment seems to broke the array.

At the moment, I’m a bit puzzled as how you were not able to import the settings array into your new site via the DB… and also how your dev site settings is lost too… maybe do a screen recording of your process?

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by Bowo.

Hello, Bowo! Thank you for your fast response!

About losing my settings in my dev environment, I was checking my wp_options table to see how ASE stored its settings, I just double clicked admin_site_enhancements option_value to copy it, after hitting CTRL + C, I pressed “Enter”, the option_value wasn’t visually changed, but after I’ve refresh my phpMyAdmin page, I saw that the array was empty “a:0:{}”.

I’ve tried to input you fresh array example into my option_value, but it still doesn’t work and returns to be an empty array again. I’m confused on why this isn’t working too.

I’m on a little rush right now to finish a project, but I’ll try to record a video for you next week to show my migration process.

@rdadalte thanks for the additional info. If you see an empty array after making changes to the option value, intentionally or not, it usually means the original array was somehow altered and becomes corrupt. Even a single additional space or deleted character can do that.

Take your time with the screen recording. Thanks.