Just took my site live and it erased every single setting, template, etc I had
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Topic
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I do several sites a month and have never had a theme completely erase all the work I’ve done (within the theme)
I literally just took the site from v2016 and moved it to the main dir and updated the links. when I go to it now, it’s 100% gone.
I’m furious and am hoping there is a way to find this content…if not I’m completely screwed.
riversendrafting.com/v2016 (I had to move it back so I can attempt to restore the previous site)
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SQL file is here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/de0f0ciwt9gt8ib/db89606_wp.sql.zip?dl=0
Hi,
Sorry to hear you e gone through this hassle. But don’t worry, I bet there’s a really simple answer in how you made the move and we can get to the bottom of it.
First can you try and explain just little bit more about what didn’t transfer?
For example, when you say theme settings, do you mean specifically the settings saved at Appearance > Theme Options?
Or do you mean content, like maybe you made a page through the layout builder and after transfer, all the elements were gone and page blank?
The main ‘home’ template (the one I was using) is 100% empty. The others from the demo import were fine.
The theme settings reverted back to the original settings when I first started–again working from theme import when I first started.
So right now..every edit I made to the theme settings and the main homepage template were completely erased.
So after you transferred the database, how did you handle changing the site URL throughout? It sounds like you didn’t do this in a way to accounts for how WordPress stores serialized data. If that’s the case I can teach you more about that.
Do you have your original database sql that you exported from your staying site before you altered it?
For example, if you take an sql file and simply do a mass find/replace of a text string (i.e like site URL), you are going to damage any array of data saved to your db that contains that string you replaced.
I didn’t export or move the DB it was just active. The only thing done in the database was replacing the /v2016 with / is that what caused it? is there anyway to get that back?
Again, I do this with every single theme I’ve customized in the past year (well over 30) and never had it damage the data.
I meant: Do you have your original database sql that you exported from your staging site before you altered it?
the db is at mediatemple. The name/db didn’t need to move at all. All I had to do was move files from v2016 to the main dir…the paths to the DB are always the same. So once I moved the files I just ran the search and replace on the DB–no short answer, No. there is not an ‘original db’ since I was working from the same one that the staging server had.
Oh no so you just did find/replace in PHPMyAdmin without making any kind of export or backup? There’s no way to get that data back unless you can get a hold of your hosting and they have something in place to roll back? Many hosts have backup protocol in place like this.
I totally get where you’re coming from. But this is just how serialized data works and is very important to understand if you’re moving so sites.
Any time you store an array of data through WordPress options, post meta, anything, it serializes this data. Serialized data works in a way where it takes the array and makes it into a string. The algorithm for how this works involves the exact character count.
For example the content of a post would not be effected because it is just a long text string.
Conversely the array of settings array for a widget would be broken, for example, if that /2016 were in any of the settings.
In this case, your theme options page is one big array of settings. Contained in there are URLs which you were altering with your find/replace. Also the elements of a custom layout are stored as one big array in the meta data.
Here’s where they discuss in the official WordPress codex page about moving WordPress:
https://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress#Changing_Your_Domain_Name_and_URLs
I personally have used this script for years:
https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/
But there are also plugins that do this (I’ve never used one personally):
Yeah, I used ‘better search and replace’ and only had it to replace posts. Obviously it did everything and screwed this whole thing up. First time that’s ever happened.
If you decide to go through that process and roll back, feel free to email me at support@themeblvd.com and I can walk you through how make the move from /2016 to / with that script, if you like. It’s really easy, you basically just upload the PHP file, go to it, follow the steps, then delete the file. Also this time, it’d be good if you have access to PHPMyAdmin, to do an export of the database to download to your computer, in case anything were to happen.
Thanks–I’m aware of proper moving processes. I just rushed this one and had the issue that has never happened before. The plugin obviously did not just target posts, it did everything..which I’m know is bad.
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