Moving/altering multisite to single (new server & domain)

  • Resolved rabbisaul

    (@rabbisaul)


    10 years, 10 months ago

    Hi, we have a legacy .org site that I ported to a new server and .com domain. What I didn’t realize was that the old site was set up with a multisite WPMU system, and indeed the public domain wasn’t the base domain in use; a testing site was.

    Even though I did both a search and replace in the db and called the new domain in my functions.php (see https://www.siteground.com/tutorials/wordpress/change-url.htm), when I ported I ended up with various links back to the old stuff that I never could figure out how to get rid of.

    Anyway, I decide to try to get rid of the multisite, and so followed instructions such as here: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/restoring-multisite-to-single-site-completely

    and elsewhere. Included in that was getting rid of these things in my database:

    wp_blogs
    wp_blog_versions
    wp_registration_log
    wp_site
    wp_sitemeta
    wp_signups

    and the spam and deleted fields in the users table.

    I also reset my wp-config with a default WP version, just with database name, username etc changed.

    Unfortunately, I now generate a “Error establishing a database connection” message on both the front and back end. What else do I need to do? Do I need to delete the test blog tables from my database? (I’m wary of doing anything in phpMyAdmin without very specific instructions, as I know virtually nothing about databases.)

    I do still have the backups, but I don’t want to just get back to square one. I want to get rid of this multisite mess and not have to worry about it.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • Thread Starter rabbisaul

    (@rabbisaul)

    Also, the site was using WPMU. Not sure how much difference this makes.

    Thread Starter rabbisaul

    (@rabbisaul)

    I deleted what wpmu files I found, but I just noticed that this was being generated in my error_log:

    [18-Jan-2014 20:05:25 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: constant() [function.constant]: Couldn’t find constant VHOST in /home/stmark/public_html/wpmu-settings.php on line 116
    [18-Jan-2014 20:05:25 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: constant() [function.constant]: Couldn’t find constant VHOST in /home/stmark/public_html/wpmu-settings.php on line 146
    [18-Jan-2014 20:05:25 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/stmark/public_html/wpmu-settings.php:116) in /home/stmark/public_html/wpmu-settings.php on line 163
    [18-Jan-2014 20:07:16 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: constant() [function.constant]: Couldn’t find constant VHOST in /home/stmark/public_html/wpmu-settings.php on line 116
    [18-Jan-2014 20:07:16 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: constant() [function.constant]: Couldn’t find constant VHOST in /home/stmark/public_html/wpmu-settings.php on line 146
    [18-Jan-2014 20:07:16 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/stmark/public_html/wpmu-settings.php:116) in /home/stmark/public_html/wpmu-settings.php on line 163
    [18-Jan-2014 20:11:39 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: constant() [function.constant]: Couldn’t find constant VHOST in /home/stmark/public_html/wpmu-settings.php on line 68

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    wpmu-settings.php is not a standard WP file anymore yikes… You’re going to have a hell of a time finding anyone who knows the old stuff (3+ years ago) well enough to fix that one. Makes a HUGE difference. :/

    Try a search.replace like this: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Moving_WordPress#Moving_WordPress_Multisite

    The other directions were not complete.

    But … this is a complicated thing.

    Thread Starter rabbisaul

    (@rabbisaul)

    Thanks. One thing I realized this a.m. is that I did the search & replace before I realized that this was a multisite. Therefore the S&E was just against the .org domain, which left the base domain untouched. Not sure how much of a mess it will make if I do a search & replace against the base domain though. The .org domain has the content I want; the base domain was a testing site. And punching in an S&E both going to the new .com may really confuse WordPress (two sites > one site). Hmm.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    Therefore the S&E was just against the .org domain, which left the base domain untouched.

    Did you search/replace the WHOLE database? Because then you did everything.

    Do you have a backup? If so, revert and use the link I gave you to PROPERLY search/replace ??

    Thread Starter rabbisaul

    (@rabbisaul)

    Looks like I’ve successfully got things ported. The big challenge now is to figure out how to upgrade/update from WPMU 2.8.6 to something more current.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    Manual upgrade to 3.0. TEST EVERYTHING.

    Manual upgrade to 3.4, again test.

    Auto-upgrade to 3.8. Test.

    Should work… In theory it works. But it goes without saying, make a Looooooot of backups ??

    Thread Starter rabbisaul

    (@rabbisaul)

    Because it was a separate issue from what I had listed here, I started a new thread, which I later marked resolved. The upshot is that I found a tutorial on how to upgrade from WPMU to WP 3.0, which I then did successfully. I then auto-upgraded directly to 3.8 without apparent issue.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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