Wordpress export snafu, how to proceed?

January 6, 2022 2:44 PM

Attempting to fiddle with and migrate my WordPress install to a new host but same domain name has gone completely pear-shaped. Please hope me.

I was hosting wordpress on newsite.cc/wp-admin but the host for everything was on oldsite.cc. I wanted to retire oldsite and bring everything to newsite. But while futzing with the theme I managed to somehow cause every page except the main index to load blank, including the WP login and admin pages. I don't know how that's possible since I was just editing the theme's CSS and functions, but it happened. I can still (even now) see all the WP files on my old host (on Namecheap, in cpanel's file manager).

I figured, OK it's as good a time as any to migrate to a fresh install on newsite/blog/wp-admin. But because I didn't have WP access I just backed up the whole directory from the file manager.

I removed the newsite domain from oldsite in cpanel and loaded up a new WP on the newsite cpanel. Here I learn that importing a WP install requires a special export process that produces a WXR file among other things.

I'm not sure what to do next. The data is all still there on my old server. But I can't log in to export it properly. I can't just drop in the files and hope WP makes sense of it on the new install since I'm sure there will be all kinds of configuration errors.

I do want to bring in all the old content. I don't care about the theme and styles and plugins etc, I can redo that. Is there a way to take the raw data and make a new WP install use it? Or should I wipe the new WP and try to get back into the old one somehow? I just don't know what's possible or recommended here.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

posted by BlackLeotardFront to Technology (10 answers total)

Do you have access to the WordPress database? That will not be part of the files you see on your host but it's arguably the most important part. Often there's a tool like phpMyAdmin to facilitate access to the database, your wp-config.php file would also have connection information for it.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:46 PM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I do have access to phpMyAdmin, I can load it now. I haven't used this tool at all.

I can also access wp-config.php directly in the file manager - but I'm not sure what to do with this data. I'm not sure where I would actually log in and get access to WP's local export tool.

All the data is definitely still there (on the old host, under its own apparently non-public directory) and accessible just not the actual WP dashboard and interface.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:00 PM on January 6, 2022

Were you futzing with just s secondary theme? Because you may be able to log in to cpanel and follow the steps here to get the default theme back and then you should be able to log in. If you modified some of the actual WP files that were not the theme, this would not be the way but let us know and we can help.
posted by jessamyn at 3:16 PM on January 6, 2022

Response by poster: It was just a secondary theme. I don't think I touched any WP functions, certainly nothing on the level of killing the whole thing.

Part of the issue is I made the original install unreachable when I removed the newsite domain from oldsite's cpanel so I could register and install on the new host. I've re-added the domain and am trying a Namecheap WP backup script to make sure it's even parsing the right directories.

I'll give the default theme thing a shot once things are actually online again and hopefully that'll do it.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:26 PM on January 6, 2022

Response by poster: I am also attempting to "clone" the installation to the original oldsite domain, that might end up letting me get the content exported from this separate install without needing to even access the oldsite-hosted newsite domain.

Having done that... I'm getting 404s with Litespeed cache banner at the bottom when trying to access WP from the Namecheap WP management softaculous thing. I see "permission denied" for access in the error logs. Argh! Be online!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:37 PM on January 6, 2022

Response by poster: AH!

I got it, I think.

It seems to have been a misconfigured .htaccess file, from the litespeed cache plugin I think. I cloned the install (the domain no longer works, it seems) to a new one on oldsite, but despite disabling litespeed cache as a plugin and purging it from cpanel it kept 403'ing. So I enabled viewing hidden files in cpanel, backed up .htaccess and its friends, then deleted them. Loaded right up!!

Hopefully this will export/import properly as well. Fingers crossed...
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:01 PM on January 6, 2022

Response by poster: OK, I'm gonna resolve this.

Turns out a missing > and/or an extra endif in theme's inc/template-tags.php was causing havoc. But I only got it to spit that error out once I could get a proper login error, which I couldn't even get until the litespeed .htaccess problem was fixed. Lord!

Thanks for the help. The backdoor theme switch worked great.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 5:11 PM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

Yay!
posted by jessamyn at 5:18 PM on January 6, 2022

At some point the default was to not expose PHP errors to the user which ends up blanking pages out when even a small error is present. Glad this was resolved!
posted by artlung at 9:07 AM on January 7, 2022

Response by poster: I should say though that I've moved on to a new problem, a 503 error not due to permissions or .htaccess... some kind of plug-in problem. (eyeroll.gif) But the site is up and running with all the content even if I can't edit it or make anything new. The patience and attention to detail of frontend developers must be off the charts.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:59 AM on January 7, 2022