Site Download for Migration
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Hi, I’m having trouble migrating my site to WordPress.org + Bluehost. I’ve purchased a domain and all there, but transferring the data over is the problem. The built in Export / Import tools are not working correctly, and I cannot identify exactly why. After uploading the WXR file, the page stalls out for about 15 minutes before showing completion but remaining a white screen. Switching to any other tab in WordPress reveals that no pages or posts were uploaded, but about 8 images were added to the library with links to ‘see attachment location’ that don’t work. Interrupting the loading by pressing reload opens a dialogue box prompting you to restart the upload because ‘the link has expired.’ Pressing restart will begin the loading process again, but it will only last about 5 seconds before an error message pops up and says that the file is empty. Checking the .xml file reveals that everything seems to be there (though I only know HTML and XHTML, so my judgment on XML files should be taken with a grain of salt), and the file is of a reasonable size. I contacted Bluehost customer service to try and identify the issue, and they just said that the Import tool does not work and I’d have to upload a .zip file of the site and an SQL database of the images directly to the server. I’m not sure how to go about this, or even what format I should store the data in. I also don’t know how I’m supposed to get the data without FTP access on the WordPress.com site or why the SQL format is even necessary, since the images should be linked in the files (assuming the data is in any sort of markup language, which I assume it would be, given that it’s, y’know, a website). If anyone can offer advice on (1) figuring out what format to download the site in and (2) how to do that, it’d be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi! That does sound pretty frustrating; this was simply the regular XML export of your site here on WordPress.com? We haven’t previously experienced that the regular import tool doesn’t work on self-hosted WordPress sites.
I took the liberty of testing an export of your site on a self-hosted WordPress setup with a different host (not Bluehost) but this appears to have worked differently – I count seven blog posts, thirteen pages, and the images are importing slowly. I actually started a second import but it seems like it’s importing everything now; I’m up to around 200 images. I’m not too sure why it’d be different on your Bluehost site unfortunately!
I did notice that because I didn’t have the stand-alone Jetpack plugin installed/activated and connected on my test site, it wasn’t able to import the form submissions you’d have in your Feedback section; I am wondering if that might be where your import trouble started too.
As it is, SFTP (SSL FTP) access is one of the hosting features of our Business plan, for sites; but you can also download a separate export of your media library only from the Tools > Export section; it’ll get downloaded as a zipped archive containing the images within folders corresponding to the months when you uploaded them. You’d be able to upload that using FTP to your new site!
Just to check, was there anything in particular you’re missing here on WordPress.com? The Business plan does also let you install custom plugins and themes, and offers greater storage among other features, if you’re looking to increase the amount of functions on offer:
If you do have any feedback, feel free to let us know!
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