Transferring WordPress Site/Can’t Access Old Dashboard
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Hi,
I’m trying to transfer everything on a WordPress site from Network Solutions to WordPress hosted site. Unfortunately the N.S. hosted site is broken and support over there has been telling me for weeks they will get back to me with help, but not been able to.
Whenever I try to login to the WordPress dashboard over there using the server URL it redirects to my domain name (wilktone.com, FYI). That host’s support can’t help me stop the redirect.
I do have FTP access to that site, so I’ve been able to download everything to a hard drive. Is there a way to access the WordPress dashboard locally from the hard drive so I can export it to my new site? Or is there another way that I can transfer the contents of the old site to the new host?
Thanks,
Dave
WP.com: Yes
Jetpack: Yes
Correct account: YesThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hey there @wilktone,
I do have FTP access to that site, so I’ve been able to download everything to a hard drive.
If you want to manually restore everything, you would need everything in wp-content as well as a MySQL database backup to restore the site to more or less the same state it was in before. It’s quite a bit more work to FTP everything up and import the data, so if you can get wp-admin working, the Move to WordPress.com plugin may be your better bet.
If the redirect problem is the only issue on the old site, do you have a temporary URL you can use with the old host? If so, you should be able to update the WordPress URL using one of these options, which will allow you to access wp-admin again if the redirect was the only problem.
https://wordpress.org/support/article/changing-the-site-url/Also, if it was broken beyond the redirect situation, can you share what was happening? We’re glad you’re here so we can be of help!
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Thanks for the suggestions, supernovia.
If the redirect problem is the only issue on the old site, do you have a temporary URL you can use with the old host? If so, you should be able to update the WordPress URL using one of these options, which will allow you to access wp-admin again if the redirect was the only problem.
https://wordpress.org/support/article/changing-the-site-url/I’ve tried a couple of options at that article with no change.
I downloaded the functions.php file with a text editor, added the code, and then replaced the file with FTP. I tried to change the URL to the temporary link in the database through phpMyAdmin. I’ve tried the later before and while it looks like the URL has changed there it still redirects to my domain name when I try to login to the WordPress dashboard. I’ve had a support ticket with Network Solutions about this issue for about a week now, but no one at the old host seems to know how to fix it.
If you want to manually restore everything, you would need everything in wp-content as well as a MySQL database backup to restore the site to more or less the same state it was in before. It’s quite a bit more work to FTP everything up and import the data, so if you can get wp-admin working, the Move to WordPress.com plugin may be your better bet.
I’m beginning to think that I may need to manually restore everything, as I’m not sure how long, if ever, it will take to access the dashboard on the old site. I’ll poke around and look in a moment, but if you’re aware of an article that tells me how to do this please post a link. However…
Also, if it was broken beyond the redirect situation, can you share what was happening? We’re glad you’re here so we can be of help!
…I’m concerned that if I’m able to transfer everything over to the WordPress host that I’ll run into the same issue.
There are a couple of things that I was trying to fix. There were plugins I wanted to use that needed an update to PHP. The hosting package currently is running 7.0, but every time I went to update it the site went down and I needed to restore from a backup. The support at that hosting company was never any help with that and kept pushing me to purchase some additional support to help me figure out how to fix that.
The issue I was trying to fix that was the proverbial straw involved using “www.wilktone.com,” which wouldn’t connect, “https/wilktone.com” was the only URL that would work. I think this may have happened when I added the secure site option and while poking around to fix it I inadvertently did something so that I couldn’t connect to the site at all. I undid what I was working on, but the site was still inaccessible except through the temporary URL (https://0316901.netsolhost.com/ if it helps to see it). Again, tech support there suggested I pay a subscription for their extra level of support.
Thanks again for your suggestions. While I’d like to keep all my posts and pages and have the URLs remain the same I’m wondering if it might be better to reboot.
Dave
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but every time I went to update it the site went down and I needed to restore from a backup.
Not to derail the subject too much. But before we go to much further, do you have a recent (or even semi recent) backup of the site?
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Not to derail the subject too much. But before we go to much further, do you have a recent (or even semi recent) backup of the site?
I have a backup of the database and have downloaded the files via ftp. There are daily backups on that host company going back a couple of days after the problem began, so that one may not be useful.
If it helps, Network Solutions backend engineer team finally got back to me with the following:
“After conducting tests on your package, we can confirm that the package is working correctly. However, since the DNS is not pointing to the server, we are unable to replicate the issue that you were experiencing. We have checked the website and it is loading when accessing it through the hosting identifier.”
Unfortunately I can’t communicate directly with that support team, I have to go through another team that then communicate with their Tier II support team.
Is it possible to migrate the content via FTP to my WordPress.com hosted site?
Thanks,
Dave
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Hello Dave,
Many thanks for getting back to us.
Is it possible to migrate the content via FTP to my WordPress.com hosted site?
Yes, we do have an SFTP facility, a guide on how to upload this can be found here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/sftp/
Do you have a copy of the exported XML file of the content?
Now the package (and I’m guessing the site) is working correctly, can you tell me if you have access to that installation (even if it’s at least via wp-admin).
Many thanks.
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Thanks, aleone89. I have already set up my FTP app to connect to my new site, so I have that part done. What I don’t know is what to upload to just transfer all the content (and hopefully the same URLs) to the new site.
Do you have a copy of the exported XML file of the content?
No. I have not been able to access the WordPress dashboard on the old site. When I try to do so using the hosting identifier URL/wp-login.php it redirects to my new site’s WordPress dashboard.
What I am able to access on the old site are the files that I can grab through FTP and the database exported from phpMyAdmin. I can use the hosting identifier to look at all the pages on the old site, but I can’t get into the back end to export the XML file.
Is there a way I can upload just the content with what I have access to? Is there a way I can access the WordPress dashboard on the old site without it redirecting (tech support at the old hosting company are no help)? Is there a way I can access the dashboard with the files and database I downloaded and backed up to export the XML file?
Thanks,
Dave
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Accepted answer
Update – I finally managed to get into the WordPress dashboard of the old site and have successfully transferred my content over.
If the redirect problem is the only issue on the old site, do you have a temporary URL you can use with the old host? If so, you should be able to update the WordPress URL using one of these options, which will allow you to access wp-admin again if the redirect was the only problem.
https://wordpress.org/support/article/changing-the-site-url/I went back to this article and tried a different option than I had tried before, in this case I edited the wp-config.php file on my old site and uploaded it back. This allowed me to access the old dashboard and export the XML file. I was then able to successfully import all the content from the old site to the new one.
Thank you everyone for the advice!
Dave
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