Not all Typepad posts importing into WordPress

That is still quite a large file or a lot of ‘stuff’ to parse and parcel out but I’m thinking there’s probably some group of characters that are clobbering whatever is parsing all that data.

Can you split that file? is the output file in XML? There are file splitter programs for doing that.

I’ll take a look and see if I can find anything weird in there but I’m not sure that’s the issue. As of yesterday it was stopping in different spots each time. When I did it a while back it all went in fine, too.

When I tried it again today, now I’m getting an Internal Server Error with no additional details. I even tried renaming and uploading the text file to /wp-content/ but that didn’t seem to work, either.

I’ve reached out to HostMonster for help and they said that WordPress accepts only XML files as imports, not text files. This doesn’t make sense to me as I had this working before — all the files went in the first time and the next few times a few posts went in each time — so it obviously takes text files. The instructions talk about a text file, too. HostMonster is are now saying it’s beyond them and it’s a WordPress issue since I’m getting the Internal Server Error now. I did notice that today the import max file size has been increased to 49 GB but I still got the error. Can anyone else help? I’m at a loss as to what to do.

@mayakent: It’s quite evident that whoever is handling your ticket at your host hasn’t a clue. Increase max upload size to 49GB to deal with an “internal server error”?

While I don’t have any server logs, I don’t believe it’s the file size that’s the problem. Since all the posts are in one text file, it wouldn’t be possible for WordPress to process those 10-20 posts if the file upload was failing.

Rather, the file is getting uploaded to the server successfully… but during the processing phase (ie conversion from the text file to WordPress posts), WordPress is hitting some server resource limit (hence the “internal server error”). This is very likely to be either PHP MEMORY limit or PHP TIMEOUT.

Most hosts allow you to tweak these two settings to some extent in their Web-based control panel or via a configuration file. But, frankly, if a host can’t figure out this sysadmin-101 stuff, they don’t deserve my money.

My honest to goodness advice is to find a host that has a clue.

If you’re having this sort of problem and support responses at this time, do you really believe you’re going to have a smooth ride after the migration? I have my doubts.

There are hosts out there that will even do the migration for you, for free or for a small fee. Ask ahead of time before placing an order: if a host can’t or won’t do the migration (even at a fee), methinks they don’t deserve your money.

Just my two cents!

George, thank you so much for your response! To be clear, I’ve used HostMonster for years and years, I didn’t just select them for this project. They’ve been very responsive to me and *seem* to be trying to figure it out but I don’t know the extent of what they can and can’t do. I agree with what you’re saying, though, that they should be able to do more, especially since I pay them (unlike WordPress). Based on your reply about the PHP settings I’m going back to them now and trying again armed with that info. They host both the old site that I’m exporting and the new site that I’m importing into so it seems to me (who really knows nothing about the hosting side) that they should be able to move the files easier than I could.

They told me the PHP settings are already maxed out and that I should split my 9,355 kb text file into smaller chunks and try it again. I’m about to give up on this whole project.

That’s quite unfortunate… but I’m really not the least surprised to hear this level of service and support coming from an EIG brand.

Before giving up though, consider posting an ad at https://jobs.wordpress.net (the official WordPress job board) to have a 3rd-party WordPress PRO give it a go. Note there’s no minimum fee for a project (I’ve seen people even post pro bono requests), and you can always tie payment with a successful migration (ie no successful migration, no pay).

Good luck!