Exporting to WordPress.org site – import (on wp.org) hosted site fails – why?

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  institutionrecyclingnetwork · Member · Jun 10, 2013 at 7:55 pm

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  Import from wordpress.com site (this one) to a hosted wp.org 3.5.1 site repeatedly hangs or fails. This is a very small site, only 30 posts, 1 image, a few comments. Here’s what happens at the wp.org site:
  – specify the .xml file (exported from this site)
  – click the Upload and Import button
  – URL progress bas moves briefly, then hangs (minutes)
  – click the Upload and Import button again
  – (gets to the Assign Authors page)
  – keep the existing author (import author)
  – check Download and import file attachments
  – click Submit
  – get a list of errors for the entire blog (basically, it appears to be one instance per blog entry):
  Failed to import post tag
  Failed to import “About us”: Invalid post type

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  lorelle · Member · Jun 10, 2013 at 11:26 pm

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  There are rarely reasons for an export/import to fail. I’ve done many and the typical cause of a problem is malformed or bad code within the content area.

  The only thing I can find that is wrong on your About Page is that the mailto code is wrong and reports a significant error when the page is run through an HTML validator. Consider fixing that error, which might cause some parsing issues with the migration process, and try again. Or remove the link and add it correctly after the import process.

  Also check the installation to which you are migrating to and make sure that it is properly installed. Create some test posts and Pages and check that all is working properly, just in case. I’ve had a bad installation on a new site cause a problem in the past, but that was a long time ago.

  Thanks.

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  kathrynwp · Staff · Jun 11, 2013 at 8:57 pm

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  Hi there, Lorelle has given you some good tips.

  I was able to successfully import your file into a test WordPress.com site. I also ran your export file through an XML debugging tool and no errors were detected.

  Have you made any changes to your site since yesterday?

  What plugin are you using to import your content on the self-hosted side? Is it the latest one from here?

  WordPress Importer

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  institutionrecyclingnetwork · Member · Jun 12, 2013 at 1:25 am

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  Thanks, folks!

  No, no site changes in weeks.
  Using the official wordpress-importer plugin.

  All set now, got it to work with a combination of Lorelle’s tip and another tip I found on-line. Here’s what worked:
  – manually edit the XML to remove the two pages (including the one with the malformed URL, which, by the way, did not appear as malformed for me, but nonetheless…).
  – compress the XML file into a .gz file, and upload that instead.

  I still received a bunch of error lines for each tag (“Failed to import post tag”), but everything imported correctly, including the tags.

  Thanks!

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  kathrynwp · Staff · Jun 12, 2013 at 1:43 pm

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  Excellent – glad you got it to work in the end. Thanks for letting us know the steps you took in case it helps others.

  Good luck with your new self-hosted site!