Migration from wordpress.com to a new host

Hi everybody,
This topic is a

solution

rather than question.
I was trying to migrate my wordpress.com site to another host. It was really hard and frustrating process but at least I did it.

There was not a simple and clear answer for that problem, I had to spend a lot of time. I just wanted to share my solution. I am not an expert, so my solution is not perfect but it just worked.

Here is how I did it: (Hope this is the right place to share it)

Symptoms:
1. I downloaded .xml file (the WXR file) from wordpress.com. It was huge, more than 30Mb.
2. My old blog was in Turkish, i want the new one UTF-8.
3. When i tried to import my xml backup to my new wordpress 2.2, i received an error saying that my .xml file is empty. (i cannot remember the exact error message, anybody remember?)
4. Converting it into UTF-8 was another problem.

Solution
1. I downloaded Notepad2. It is a good tool to convert character set. (But as an edit tool, it is not good as UltraEdit). download: https://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html
I open my old Turkish .xml file, convert char set
File – > Encoding -> UTF-8 and saved new file.

2. I downloaded Uniform Server, ver. Apollo 3.5 (https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=53691&package_id=48193)
It is a small tool that simulates a web host in your PC. When you install it,by default you will get a folder named Uniform Server\ in your C drive. The path C:\Uniform Server\udrive\www is your web folder.Put your WP 2.2 installation files under C:\Uniform Server\udrive\www

3. start Uniform server just by clicking C:\Uniform Server\Server_Start.bat

4. You need a database, and Uniform Server will handled it as well. Browse https://localhost/apanel/, you will see the menu on the left. Go to phpMyAdmin and create a new dtabase and user. Then configure your wp-config.php file.

5. Install WP.

6. Now, you have a fresh local WP 2.2, and a big .xml (the WXR) file encoded in UTF-8. We will try to import this file into local WP. Before that, we will configure Uniform Server in order to make it handle big files:

Browse : https://localhost/apanel/
On the left menu: Configurations -> PHP Configuration

Here, change the values like following (this is what i have done):

Maximum Script Execute Time (s.): –>600
Maximum Memory Amount (MB): –> 256
Maximum Post Size: –> 100mb
Maximum Upload Size: –> 100mb

(Remember, I am not an expert, so those values are not guaranteed. Just restore them their old values after you finished.)

7. Even with these values, you may not be able to import files bigger than 8 or 10 Mb. Than you should split bigger files:
Open your .xml files with a text editor (Notepad2 does not support tabs, but you can open a new window by Alt+0 (zero, not Oxford) ).
Search for <item>, and simply cut the file just before <item>. (Note that there should be </item> at the very end of the selection)

8. Your new .xml files should be less than 10 Mb, (5 Mb is better), and your files should end with a </item>

9. Just import the files through local WP2.2 admin menu.

10. You should have your blog in your local WP. The rest is exporting sql file and importing into your hosted web site.

(This topic is not supposed t ocover exporting and importing SQL files, you can find a lot about it in the forum.)

Note: Im not a native English speaker, sorry about the mistakes…