New to this!!! Please help!

I get this message when trying to import posts:

File is empty. Please upload something more substantial. This error could also be caused by uploads being disabled in your php.ini.

I don’t follow you at all. What do you mean by importing posts even without being on a host? What do you mean by moving my .com blog to a self host and having the same domain names? Trying to import posts and how?

Ok. Sorry. Let me try to explain this.

My current blog is consequenceofsound.com

It is a blog hosted by wordpress.com. In an attempt to make it more user friendly and professional looking, I’d like to move it from being hosted by wordpress to a self-hosted blog (using the program I downloaded from www.remarpro.com). This new self-hosted blog will be pointed to the consequenceofsound.com name.

However, in an effort to not interrupt my readership, I don’t want to upload the self-hosted blog from my computer (where only I can see it) to a host (such as bluehost, which I plan on using) until everything is ready to go.

I’d like to import all my posts that have previously appeared on the wordpress.com blog to this self-hosted one before uploading it. However, after I export the file to my desktop and then import it to the self-host, nothing loads and I get the aforementioned error.

Does this make sense?

You may have to contact your host in regards to this error. It sounds like PHP is running out of memory. Do you have access to and can you edit the php.ini file? If so, look for the line that says post_max_size = 8M and edit it to something like 16M. Be advised though many hosts do not allow you to edit that file. The server will also have to be restarted after that. You could also try editing the htaccess file that lives at root. Just above #BEGIN WORDPRESS add,

php_value memory_limit 32M
php_value post_max_size 16M

See if that works. If not you’ll have to contact your host.

So I can’t import posts unless I am uploaded to a host like Bluehost?

Because currently, I am just on what I guess you call a local host (where only I can see the site) and the importing posts function isn’t working…

Ok, I misunderstood. I thought you were already hosted somewhere. What are you using to run WordPress locally? I use Xampp.

I’m using MAMP.

I’m not familiar with that one. With Xampp, you would navigate to xampp\apache\bin\php.ini so I can only assume your setup would be something similar. Once you find php.ini look for a line that says post_max_size =. My default install says post_max_size = 16M but I don’t know what yours would be. When you find that line try upping the limit and see what happens.

If that doesn’t work then I’m out of ideas. Hopefully someone else will take a stab at it.

Hmm…I can’t seem to find this.

Does anyone have experience with MAMP?

A quick Google search tells me it is either,

/Applications/MAMP/conf/php4/php.ini OR
/Applications/MAMP/conf/php5/php.ini

It’s for situations like this that I love Grep. Everyone should use it. It’s perfect for searching for text strings in files.

What type of application would I use to edit these? They don’t appear to be text files…

Thanks again for all the help!

An INI file is a simple text file. It can be edited with Notepad. It stores configuration data for the program it is associated with. Make sure it’s php.ini

Hmm. Well, the max size was 32M. I changed into 16M and I still get the same result.

This is the message I get:

File is empty. Please upload something more substantial. This error could also be caused by uploads being disabled in your php.ini.

But I’ve tested uploads with things like songs and images and it works fine. Maybe I’m missing something? Are imported posts supposed to show up immediately?

Oh, and Len, I can’t thank you enough for helping me. I’ve done so much research over the last 48 hours that my head is spinning. I certainly appreciate it.

What did you adjust – post_max_size or memory_limit? Try upping the other.

EDIT: Also, make sure file_uploads = is set to “on”

Hmm… My memory limit is 8MB, I’m at 8M and nothing is working. And file uploads are on.

The file is uploading…

https://img406.imageshack.us/img406/9647/picture5ku2.jpg

It’s just the posts are not showing up on the page.