restored website produces 403 & 404 errors

  • Resolved silverblatt

    (@silverblatt)


    4 months, 2 weeks ago

    After installing BackWPup on my live WordPress site (hosted on Bluehost), I’ve successfully backed up the site to a .zip file. However, when I attempt to restore that backup to LocalWP installed on my PC (by dragging and dropping the .zip file onto the LocalWP window), I run into problems. If I leave the old copy of the site in LocalWP, then I must give the restored version a new name, and then after the restore the restored site won’t open – it displays an error saying the URL doesn’t match, or something like that. If on the other hand I delete the old copy of the site in LocalWP, I can then restore the backup without changing the site name, but then I get other errors when I try to load the restored site: a 404 error if I try to go to the admin page, and a 403 error if I try to just display the site.

    What am I doing wrong? Do I need to install BackWPup on the copy of the site in LocalWP on my PC, and then use BackWPup to do the restore? Or is there some other trick to getting this to work? I’m happy to do most of my day to day site maintenance on the live site, but I need to know that if I end up parting ways with Bluehost (which seems a distinct possibility given how wretched their tech support has been), I need to know that I can restore the backup of the live site to both LocalWP and another host.

    Thanks in advance for any assistance you can give.

    • This topic was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by silverblatt.
Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Support BWU Support

    (@saranshwpm)

    Hi there,

    Thank you for reaching out. Please note that migrating a site is a pro feature.

    Restoring your website on LocalWP requires a few manual adjustments. When you restore the backup, you need to update the domain references in your database to match “localhost.” This can be done using tools like WP-CLI or plugins such as “Better Search Replace.” These tools will help you change the domain from your live site to “localhost,” ensuring that your restored site functions correctly on your local machine.

    If you encounter any URL mismatch errors, it’s likely because the domain references haven’t been updated correctly. Make sure all instances of your live site domain are replaced with “localhost” to avoid these issues.

    Additionally, ensure that file and folder permissions are correctly set to avoid 403 errors.

    I hope this helps! If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.

    Best regards,

    Thread Starter silverblatt

    (@silverblatt)

    How would I actually use Better Search Replace to change the URL references after restoring the backup to LocalWP? As I understand it, you can only access a plugin from the site Dashboard, but I can’t even get to the Dashboard in the first place because of the 404 error. What’s the actual procedure to make this work?

    Plugin Support happyAnt

    (@duongcuong96)

    Hi @silverblatt

    i would suggest you to change the url of the localhost site in wp-config.php by adding these lines BEFORE the line said That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing.

    Of course, please change the example.com to your localhost domain! 


    define( 'WP_HOME', 'https://example.com' );
    define( 'WP_SITEURL', 'https://example.com' );

    Another way is you can manually update the value of siteurl and home in the datbase!

    I hope this helps! If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.