Lost some complex formatting when transferring servers

Are the differences solely visual?

Andrew,

The differences are solely visual. All functionality seems to work fine. The issue is that the widget areas seem to be completely mixed up. It looks like a puzzle that got all mixed up.

Thanks!

Do you know whether your website/ page with the problems conform to W3C’s validator?
https://validator.w3.org

It does not. I just input both sites. The one that is formatted correctly and the one which is not and they both come up with errors. Actually the one formatted correctly had 8 more errors than the one not showing correct formatting.

And I will say the only formatting issues are in the widget areas. The homepage is essentially entirely widgets. The widget areas that were created are all there on both sites. It is just the formatting of the widget areas that is somewhat off.

If this helps anyone in helping me out. I did a page source compare and the pages source code literally is the same with a few minor exceptions. First and obviously, the website URL and media URLs are labeled with the new site URL instead of the old one.

However, there is another issue that I think would cause issues, but I am not sure how/where to fix it. I notice in the source that there are some div id=”text 10″ (or various numbers such as “text 24” ect ) that are not name the same on both pages.

For example, on the correct page it may say div id=”text 10″ and the new page will say div id=”text 5″

For example, on the correct page it may say div id=”text 10″ and the new page will say div id=”text 5″

Can you apply the correct id values to some <div> elements, to see whether this could be the issue?

The issue is finding these div elements. The site was created by a company and I was told we could just copy the FTP to the new site and all should be well. However, that was not the case.

I have combed through the editor to the best of my ability and can not seem to find these elements. The are also using a plugin called “scripts and styles” which has a lot of that info in it. I did find a few of the div ids there but they match up. So I am not sure where to find them to change them.

Note I have also went through each and ever file in the editor (style.css, function.php, ect) and copy and pasted the code from the old site into the new site just to ensure they were identical and they are. Where else could the div ids be located if they are not in the editor or scripts and styles sheets? I am literally lost because everywhere I know to look they are not there.

And it looks like these are div elements from plugins. So could that be the issue? The plugin named it something else on this site and the styling is calling a wrong/changed id?? If that made sense? I have never had this problem before and I have literally worked on this for about a week combing through everything to no avail. Hence why I am here looking for a different perspective.

You can add these IDs to <div> elements temporarily and easily through a browser Inspector tool, such as Google Chrome’s built in Inspect Element tool.
https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/elements

Have you used this tool before?
Can you link the problematic website?

I have not used that tool before. I will take a look and see if I can figure out how to use it. My assumption would be that I would just change the IDs in the tool and see if it clears up the problem. If it does, I would need to seek out where in my site to make the changes?

Unfortunately I can not link to the site (as you would not see anything) since it is a private sandbox tool for our design purposes only. It is not a public link :-/

If it does, I would need to seek out where in my site to make the changes?

We’ll get to that problem/ solution if this is the issue.

Okay, then I will see if I can give the Chrome tool a go and see what happens. Thanks.

here is what I would do.

download a copy of your .sql database from php my admin now, and open it in a text editor and then do a search for “youroldsite.com” and replace all instances with “yournewname.com” and then import that into a newly created mysql database, then update your wp-config.php file to point to the new database and reload the site, this should clear out any references to the old url, and ensure when you do the replacement in your text editor you do not input WWW or https:// simply the domain name of the site and directory if applicable. lets see if that helps and then go from there