Packets out of order error driving me crazy!

I cannot explain the packets out of order. It sounds like you have no DNS set up so your computer is attempting to resolve the DNS and finding none.

Here is a nice little trick you should try using: modify your hosts file so your computer will resolve the DNS to your local computer 127.0.0.1 instead of going out on the internet. That way you can develop using your domain name as it will appear live on the internet eventually.

It will solve most of the problems you are having (don’t know about the packet thing). You can search for the location of your hosts file on whatever OS you are using. (Open Notepad with administrator rights, right click, run as administrator in Windows). Put a line like this in your hosts file:

127.0.0.1 yoursite.com https://www.yoursite.com

Then when you type yoursite.com in your browser, it will be directed to your local development server. When you want to access that domain name on the internet, just add a pound sign in front of the line to comment it out:

#127.0.0.1 yoursite.com https://www.yoursite.com

Then you’ll be going out to the internet again.

Okay, that makes sense. Only, where’s the hosts file located?

Your hosts file location depends on your operating system.

The file is just named “hosts” with no extension on Windows. On Windows, it is located in the /Windows/System32/drivers/etc folder. You can search for it on other OSes or use your favorite search engine to find it.

If on Windows, run Notepad as administrator and when you navigate to the folder, make sure you have “All Files” selected in the dropdown box or you will never see the hosts file as it does not have an extension (let alone a .txt extension).

Details on location and usage of hosts file here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_%28file%29

Okay tried that. Added 127.0.0.1 in the first column and my_website.com in second column. Edited and saved as admin. Started Xampp, opened IE 11 and still nothing. Received “This page can’t be displayed.” for both my_website.com/wordpress or /wp-admin. Well, every step we take we eliminate one more possibility.

Couple more questions. Syntax can be tricky at times. The name I use for my website has an underscore in it. Could this be causing an issue?

While sailors my think any port in a storm is good, doesn’t work so well with networking, internet. I noticed that MySQL has taken to port 3306, where as Apache is on port 80. Could I not set localhost to localhost:80?

Is your website in a subfolder of your domain or in the root folder? What if you try accessing it as my_website.com or my-website.com/wordpress/ (folders are supposed to have trailing slashes).

Your best method is to mimic your server on the internet by using the hosts file to resolve the DNS to 127.0.0.1. In your WordPress admin area, you have two field where the domain name is entered. WordPress expects that to be the domain name, not localhost.

Odds are you are making a simple mistake somewhere.

If I use either https://localhost:3306/wp-admin or /wordpress I receive this error.

Why would you put the mysql port in your wordpress address? The browser thinks you are trying to connect to your mysql instance, not your web site.

MySQL runs on 3306 by default, Apache already runs on 80 by default. There’s generally no reason to be concerned with, or reference the port numbers in any URL’s to your development sites located in your htdocs directory.

Step1) install XAMPP using the defaults

Step 2) extract the wordpress directory to your htdocs folder

Step 3) install your wordpres site at http//localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php

Step 4) access your new site at http//localhost/wordpress

… once it’s working properly, you can further investigate the suggestions @cheesedude mentioned if you want to resolve development domains to your locally hosted sites.

@jayv2251

Did you set up a virtual host record in your XAMPP? If you go to https://localhost, you should be going to the XAMPP page. I don’t know why you would want WordPress to run in a subfolder of the XAMPP page.

Setting up a virtual host is a much better option.

In your /xampp/apache/conf folder, look for this line near the bottom:

# Virtual hosts
Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

Make sure there is NO pound sign (#) before the Include line. (It may be fine by default.)

Go into your /xampp/apache/conf/extra folder and open the file httpd-vhosts.conf.

Add a section like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot “C:/xampp/htdocs/folder-name”
ServerName yoursite.com
ServerAlias https://www.yoursite.com
</VirtualHost>

folder-name will be the name of whatever folder you put your wordpress files in. yoursite.com will be your domain name.

Then restart your Apache webserver in the XAMPP control panel. If you made the entry in your hosts file as I mention above, you should be able to access your local development wordpress installation by typing your domain name into your browser.

Another tip: make sure you run XAMPP with administrator rights. You can search Yahoo or Google about how to do that.

I tried using https://my_websiter.com/wordpress/ adding that last backslash. That didn’t work either.

If I don’t find what’s going wrong soon, I may consider uninstalling both Xampp and WordPress. I downloaded both from Bitnami. I was going to download WordPress.zip from www.remarpro.com, but I’ve been having issues with 7zip not working.

Currently Xampp is in the C:\ root directory with the installed copy of WordPress being located in the C:\Xampp\apps\wordpress directory. Mind you I didn’t select this, the WordPress.exe file I also downloaded from Bitnami did.

Just for the record, I followed along with www.remarpro.com’s infamous 5 minute install and everything came up as prompted.

There was no reason to download WordPress from Bitnami. I have never attempted it. Download the zip file from www.remarpro.com, download a copy of WinRar to extract it (Windows should be able to extract the zip file without a program). Extract the wordpress files to a folder in your XAMPP installation.

Do you want to run WordPress as the main site or do you want WordPress to be in a separate directory with another page serving as your main index web page?

Okay, I’m getting even more confused now. I didn’t want to do anything other then to install Xammp on my laptop so I could work on my WordPress website before paying for a host. Having read the install instructions many times over, I thought I was installing it, at it’s most basic, simplest format.

I’d like to repeat, I only downloaded and attempted to install the Bitnami .exe version of WordPress as I was having issues unzipping files. I believe Windows has had this ability since XP, I’m now using Win 8.1. I tried to unzip the files to the htdocs folder, but it kept asking which program to use. That’s why I downloaded 7zip.

I think at this point I’m going to uninstall 7zip, WordPress and Xampp. Then re download Xampp, download WordPress.zip and WinRAR and start from scratch.

I don’t think you need to uninstall XAMPP. You might not even have to worry about uninstalling your WordPress.

The instructions I provided are quite simple. Follow them slowly. You will be fine.

If you type localhost into your browser’s address bar, are you able to access the XAMPP page? If so, you are most of the way there already. Create a folder in /htdocs where you want your WordPress to go. Unzip the WordPress zip file to that folder. Set up your Virtual Host as I described earlier. Make sure your hosts file is properly configured as we discussed earlier. Then navigate your browser to yoursite.com (whichever domain you used for the hosts file and Virtual Hosts configuration file).

All quite simple. I have done it many times. Once you do it, then you will realize it was no big deal. Don’t get stressed out over this. ??

Because of all the issus I had with 7zip not working and using Bitnami’s plugin for Xampp I made the decision to delete everything and start fresh. Which I just completed and now have a site working on my localhost. Thanks for all the help!!!