Strange interaction between local site and real (Internet) site

  • Hi all. I am fairly new to website creation so please bear with me. I created a website with WordPress and published it online. I also installed another instance of WordPress on my PC, as a local install. Both were working OK. I decided to insert a hit counter into my website, which I did. Recently I used the Import/Export tools in WordPress to import my website into my local site, so that I could play around with it without ruining the website. I realised after a while that the hit counters on both were displaying the same readings and updated on both whenever I viewed either the local site or the website. For some reason there seems to be a link between the 2 hit counters. I tried changing the content of a page on the local site, but this did not affect the website, so it is only the hit counters that are displaying this strange effect. Has anyone else come across this weird connection?

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

  • This is probably due to the way you copied the site. The path to the hit counter probably did not get updated.

    When you move a site, you must replace the old URLs and paths with the new ones. Some of these are stored in the database in ‘serialized’ form where the string length is stored along with the string. You must use special tools to search and replace the old values with the new ones.

    If you replace an old URL with a new one of a different length, it will break the serialization, causing many different problems.

    If the old site is still available, you can use the steps shown in this article to copy the site: https://wordpress.mcdspot.com/2012/08/22/migrating-a-wordpress-site-step-by-step/

    If the old site is not available, and you still have a copy of the database from that site, you should be able to use this tool to make the changes: https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/

    Thread Starter billh65

    (@billh65)

    Thanks vtxyzzy for the information. I will take a look into the paths that you said. I still have the original site.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • The topic ‘Strange interaction between local site and real (Internet) site’ is closed to new replies.