Migrating WordPress site from development directory to root directory

So I was already logged into my dashboard for step 2 and when I was on step 4, everything went haywire. I changed the WordPress URL, but immediately got a message that said “The requested URL was not found on the server.”

That’s why Step 7 at https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Moving_WordPress#Moving_Directories_On_Your_Existing_Server says “(Do not try to open/view your site now!)” ??

To fix this, move all of the files as you would in Step 8, then follow this guide to correct the settings URLs directly in the database: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Changing_The_Site_URL#Changing_the_URL_directly_in_the_database

Finally, start up again at Step 9.

Also, once you move the files over to the root directory, if your old site had an index.html or home.html file at the root directory, make sure you rename these so the browser uses WordPress’s index.php file instead.

Thanks for your responses! I haven’t moved the files yet (step 8), but I wanted to go just LOOK at the phpMyAdmin steps mentioned in the instructions. And I found that the siteurl and the home fields both contain the NEW (and correct) path (https://lewinsville.org rather than the development subdirectory of https://lewinsville.org/wp, which is what it used to be). So apparently I WAS able to change the paths before everything went haywire. So, just to make sure I understand you correctly, I should now resume at Step 8 (get rid of all my current html web pages and move my files and folders from the /wp directory into my root? And finally, at step 9, I should be able to login to the dashboard/admin page using an updated url (removing the /wp from the url)? (and I think then I need to use a plugin — Velvet Blues Update URLS or Better Search Replace to update all the links?) Sorry! I’m a little flustered and distressed about this process, so want to be absolutely sure I am on the right track.

Yep, now that you have done steps 1 through 7, it’s time to move on to step 8. ??

Okay, thanks. I have now completed all the steps. BUT … many of my images are just not showing up, or I can only see the top half of them. I have done the search and replace for the links using Better Search Replace plugin. Any thoughts? Do I need to upload all of them again?

Oh, and I forgot to add …. thanks so much for getting me this far! I am able to login to the dashboard/admin area, and my site does come up …. but I am having trouble with the images.

Would you please give us a link to a post or page with the broken images?

Here’s a page which should have a full header image directly under the main horizontal menu at the top: https://www.lewinsville.org/how-to-join/ As you can see, only a sliver of the top of the image appears. Here’s another — the header image appears in full, but there’s an image on the left side of the text which does not appear and there’s a pdf document at the bottom of the text which has a broken link. There is also a problem with the theme — the drop down menus on the main menu appear transparent and very hard to read.

I was using Filezilla to upload the wordpress files to the root directory. I noticed that when I put up my default page that the site is down for maintenance, one of the images I uploaded with Filezilla didn’t fully show. Not until I uploaded it with Dreamweaver (which is what I was using for my old html site, did the full image show. Perhaps I have a setting wrong in Filezilla? I’ve not had that problem before.

Thank you again for your persistence with my issues!

And finally, here’s another link to a page with lots of images which only load part way: https://www.lewinsville.org/events/

Thank you.

Yeah, it looks like FileZilla corrupted the files on move. :/

Here’s the header image: https://www.lewinsville.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/LPC-Congregation-wp-960×250.gif

Here’s the broken image from the first post: https://www.lewinsville.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/goodsamaritan1-960×350.gif

Do you have a backup of all the image files before you moved them, or at least access to the originals?

If you have access to the originals, and it’s not too much, it might be better to just re-upload the images.

Yes, I have access to the originals and I have a backup of the entire /wp subdirectory. I uploaded all the files to my root directory from the subdirectory backup I made. Do you think it would be worth trying to upload the wp-content folder again using Filezilla? The process of deleting each image file, re-uploading in wordpress and then reinserting in each page seems quite laborious. I have hundreds of media files!

Sure, it’s definitely worth trying to upload the /wp-content/ directory again.

I just tried uploading again one subdirectory in the wp-contents folder, but no better results. I can upload all my media files one by one, but some of my theme didn’t make it and I don’t know how to get those files. I have emailed the theme author for help there.

Your theme is at /wp-content/themes/

Did you make a backup before all of this?

Yes. When it was time to move my files from the /wp directory to my root directory, I used this copy of my files to upload to the root. The files also still reside in the /wp directory. Did I do this incorrectly? I don’t know how to move files up in Filezilla, only how to upload or download from one page (local) to the other pane (remote).

So I have all the files on my local hard drive.