Using 0.5.4.3 and WordPress 4.0 bug?

Always on WordPress 3, right? Me too. I had a network on 3 that set up so slick…I hadn’t anticipated any problems with 4.

I think that is part of the reason I was a little flippant with the setup initially — “oh, well, I’ll just set it up wrong and move it to the right place later” — and that was what bit me.

I am really stumped as to what is going on with yours now. I know that once I was very particular about how I set it up, it all went together well.

I do know that my server is specifically set up to be good for WordPress 4. So if there was a server setting, I wouldn’t know about that. I have a unique ability to crash servers, so I rely on my hosting company to set mine up.

Seriously. Bought a server once, crashed it within 5 minutes. Had to have an expensive technician come out and format and rebuild the whole thing. It took him ours, muttering, “HOW did you do this???” the entire time. Shrug.

I don’t do servers. (grin)

That’s my thing, servers. I’ve been building and maintaining server environments to small data centers for a long time now. I love hardware more than software ??

Yes, the sub-domain servers are all running 3.x I believe.

So it sounds like one variation is set up and the other didn’t stick. Did you try deleting the one that didn’t show up in the sites page and adding it again?

Both times the id number will be the same… 2.

This plugin is screwy.
I changed the ID to 2 for the second one but when the screen comes back, it’s always 3 still.

I’m completely stumped.

Welcome to my world ??

Hahaha, you said you can break servers and my specialty is finding bugs and problems in software.

@bloggy2013 and @deleyna You two are spinning around making yourselves dizzy. I can’t follow all the things you are trying.

Not the “plugin is screwy”, and what are you trying to change IDs for? There’s no need for that. Follow the instructions. (If you used the wrong Site ID defining a mapping, delete it and create a new one.)

For Everyone:

My instructions have a section on how to correct the settings after trying everything under the sun (how do you think I wrote my instructions!) Server Admins “know” too much, that’s how years ago I got jumbled, but it’s really straightforward.

Yes, you do need to clear caches. Turn off WordPress cache plugins until you have domain mapping working. Turn off browser cache, or clear it often. In Firefox I use the Web Developer Extension, has an option to disable browser cache.

Minimal Security:

Do yourself a favor, and Never use wp_ as your table prefix. “Every” SQL Injection script written assumes you used that. (Don’t use wp3_ or wp4_ or the domain name, either). If your site is set up, use a plugin like iThemes Security to change it!

Do yourself a favor, and Never use admin as your login name. Use iThemes Security to change it if you did. Have one login name for writing/editing, have another for administration; use nicknames for every user so the login name is never displayed on the site. Then always limit login attempts (iThemes Security).

Back to Basics:

1) Is WordPress installed in the root folder of your account? (Or, in the root folder of a subdomain of your account?) Domain Mapping can not work with WordPress installed in a subfolder, not a limitation of WordPress or the Domain Mapping plugin, but of DNS on shared hosting.

2) Before you installed the Domain Mapping .htaccess rules, does Wildcard DNS work? Browse to https://asdf. yourdomain.com/test.html (where there is no subdomain asdf, and where test.html is some “Hello There” minimal HTML page). Does it display?

Don’t bother trying to install or test the Domain Mapping plugin until Wildcard DNS is working.

3) Have you removed all .htaccess rules that might affect domain mapping? Have you removed any subdomains you might have made for your mapped domains? The only .htaccess rules specific to domain mapping that you should have are the ones WordPress tells you to use.

Exception: You should redirect mappeddomain.com to www. mappeddomain.com (or the reverse, whichever you are using) in .htaccess [please forgive the space in there, it’s just to make it not display as a link…]

4) Have you reset the options in /wp-admin/network/settings.php?page=dm_admin_page since switching to the Development version of the domain mapping plugin? The settings must be reset from the prior version.

What works on my setup (development revision 940562 ver 0.5.4.4) is :
1a Redirect administration pages
not 1b
1c Map links in /wp-admin/
2 Permanent redirect
3 User domain mapping page
not 4

5) Delete all your domain mappings.

6) Go through all the Detailed Configuration in https://lcblog.lernerconsult.com/2012-wordpress-3-multi-site-domain-mapping/ to clean out errors you probably put in while trying everything under the sun. (Guess how I that….)

7) Re-create your domain mappings.

>You two are spinning around making yourselves dizzy.

Actually, we have tried what the documents show and since those things are not working, that is why we are ‘spinning’ around trying different ideas. That is the way of finding out what works, what doesn’t, gathering leads, etc in all technologies.

>Not the “plugin is screwy”,

Sure it is. Didn’t you read what I mentioned about changing things but those changes never staying. However some of those things could also be from the ‘testing’ we are doing at this point since the regular method doesn’t seem to work.

Also, did you read the parts where I mention what the doc says should be yet no such things exist for me even after following the doc completely? Instead of adding to this very very long post, perhaps read through and look at the things I’ve said do not match up with the doc and what I am seeing for results or confusion.

Remember that no everyone will bother to post about their problems, many will simply give up or find someone else to do it for them and you or the author will never learn from anyones problems. I am not making anything up because I would like to see multi-domain working properly for me.

>Follow the instructions. If you used the wrong Site ID
>defining a mapping, delete it and create a new one.

As far as I can understand it, you simply start with 2 and keep incrementing from there.

>My instructions have a section on how to correct the
>settings after trying everything under the sun

Truly, no one should attempt this on a live site. Set up a temp site, go through the process until you understand it well, have it working, then back up your live site, then give it a try. That’s how I would do it at least :).

>Server Admins “know” too much, that’s how years ago I got
>jumbled, but it’s really straightforward.

I agree but again, remember that we are only ‘trying’ things because so far, the things mentioned in the doc are not working in my case at least. I would be happy to go through the whole process with you in this post, explaining every little step, then touching bases with you, then giving you the results, etc.

>Never use wp_ as your table prefix.
>Never use admin as your login name.

So VERY true and WP should have an automatic random generator at this point because most people don’t know about this.
I’m using wp_ for now because this is just a temp install but you are right, use another prefix and NEVER use a word which had ‘admin’ in it.

>1) Is WordPress installed in the root folder of your account?

Yes, absolutely. It is at the root of the web server. /var/www/html/

>2) Before you installed the Domain Mapping
>.htaccess rules, does Wildcard DNS work?

Yes, DNS works fine and when converting the site to network, it suggests editing the config and htaccess files.
Although, this could be confusing to some people as well. What you are telling people to do is to set up a wildcard domain DNS record such as *.domain.com. That’s fine if all you’ll be doing is setting up sub-domains, meaning 1.domain.com, 2.domain.com, 3.domain.com. There is no need to do this with your DNS server if you are not doing to be using sub-domains but will be using multiple domains.

>3) Have you removed all .htaccess rules that might affect
>domain mapping?

It’s a fresh install so the only changes made to htaccess and config were the suggested edits when I converted the site to networked. However, multi-domains DID work when I first started trying to learn about setting up a multi-domain WP network but only two new domains could be seen beyond the main domain. (See very early on in this thread).

>Exception: You should map mappeddomain.com to
>https://www.mappeddomain.com (or the reverse,
>whichever you are using) in .htaccess

Typically, this is done in the apache httpd.conf file as a ServerAlias but I guess some might not have access to that.

>4) Have you reset the options in
>/wp-admin/network/settings.php?page=dm_admin_page
>since switching to the Development version of the
>domain mapping plugin? The settings must be reset
>from the prior version.

In my case, all new install with the latest plugin.

I suggest that instead of adding to this lengthy post, that you and I now start from scratch so that we can go through each step, clearing up any confusion or potentially misunderstand-able sections etc. I can go through your doc one step at a time and give you input.

Obviously, many people are struggling with this and having this doc is very very important and appreciated.

@george — thanks for helping! I do get how you figured that stuff out — same way I learned! As for spinning out of control: one bit you may have missed: mine is now working fine. Works like a charm. Especially when I don’t test some of the odd things bloggy found in various documentation. (Grin)

@bloggy — I will say this: I got it working. Lots of people have. So there’s something going on. I’m not at all sure the plugin is screwy. I think the setup is very specific or else it breaks. If that is the definition of screwy…then maybe, but I don’t know any software that doesn’t break when the setup is off.

Some random comments:

Never use wp_ as your table prefix.

LOL. And never list what your real prefix is on a forum. ??

Although, this could be confusing to some people as well. What you are telling people to do is to set up a wildcard domain DNS record such as *.domain.com. That’s fine if all you’ll be doing is setting up sub-domains, meaning 1.domain.com, 2.domain.com, 3.domain.com. There is no need to do this with your DNS server if you are not doing to be using sub-domains but will be using multiple domains.

@bloggy — didn’t you say that you WERE set up with a sub-domain structure? Yes, it is virtual, but still… this point might be something to reconsider.

And with that, I’m actually leaving town and probably won’t be chiming in. Looks like you’re in good and much more knowledgeable hands.

And… mine works. If *I* can get it working, you know *you* can!

I’m sure I’ll get it working at some point. Nothing eludes me for ever, just have to go through a lot of pain sometimes :).

I would not worry about mentioning the prefix in forums so long as you don’t mention the real domain.

You might be right that the plugin might not be screwy but right now at least, it’s how it appears. As you said, slight changes could cause that so I can’t know until I’ve got it working.

As for which version, there is sub-directory and sub-domain setup. What I want is to have different domains on the single WP site/server which I’ve seen talked about and got going for myself on a small level.

Thanks for all your input and help. Just throwing ideas around at least motivated me to keep playing with it. Have a good trip.

Thanks! Glad to help. It’s what I do. LOL

As for the different domains — you got that working in 3, iirc.

THAT may be a function of WP 4. It seems to me that it handles the MU differently than 3 did. Now I’m saying that more from a “feel” than knowledge.

Part of my initial mess was that I had created a series of domains in a WP 3 MU install just as you are describing. I thought I could do that with this.

I could not. It seemed to require a “parent”. For me, this required sitting down and thinking over my own structure and if there was a parent corporation. There was, it just didn’t have a website.

Now it does. It’s lame, but it’s there. And once I set it up that way, everything started working. It seemed to be an almost philosophical approach change for me.

Shrug.

And it has given me all sorts of ideas for that new site. LOL!

I’d be glad to work with you. Screen share via Google Hangouts? Send me a message via https://glerner.com/contact.php I always receive those.

“That is the way of finding out what works, what doesn’t, gathering leads, etc in all technologies.”
Yes, and that is how I got my multi-site working… Grrr… So I wrote my documentation so knew I understood what was going on and could replicate it for all my client’s sites.

“As far as I can understand it, you simply start with 2 and keep incrementing from there.”

No, you have to find the ID of the site you want to map, and you put That in the field. Read my instructions on how to do that, or how to do that via the mapped site’s Settings. [That’s what I tried, wondering “what do I put in this field”, so good guess. I somehow pieced together the hints from several documents… and of course it makes sense once I figured it out.]

“changing things but those changes never staying”
The plugin is not documented well enough. That setting for Site ID doesn’t get edited that way; all you can change is the Mapping for that Site ID. Again, delete the bad record, enter a new one. [I know, I tried that too.]

“What you are telling people to do is to set up a wildcard domain DNS record such as *.domain.com. That’s fine if all you’ll be doing is setting up sub-domains, meaning 1.domain.com, 2.domain.com, 3.domain.com. There is no need to do this with your DNS server if you are not doing to be using sub-domains but will be using multiple domains.”

Yes, and No, I mean you have to use Wildcard DNS if you are not going to manually set up DNS for each new site. With Wildcard DNS, WordPress will handle all the “virtual subdomain” creation; much less work for you as the Administrator. (For people on shared hosting, each DNS change has to be done by their hosting company, could take days; wildcard DNS is only once — if your CPanel (or equivalent) won’t let you set up wildcard DNS, make them figure out how to do it!)

Explaining for everyone: I suspect that for Domain Mapping to work, the unmapped domain has to work. If you are mapping salmon.fishing.com to my-salmon-fishing.com then fishing.com would have to be where WordPress is installed, and salmon.fishing.com has to display properly; then you can map the domain. Similar testing for subfolder setup (fishing.com/salmon).

One thing that Will Not work is having salmon as an Add-On domain (the way CPanel creates them), which would send requests to the folder on your account instead of to the WordPress index.php (public_html/index.php is correct, not public_html/salmon/index.php). 404 File Not Found errors is a good clue you got it wrong, check what specific file name it isn’t finding.