Problem installing more than one WordPress-site locally on my PC !

useful codex:
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Installing_WordPress#Installing_WordPress_on_your_own_Computer https://codex.www.ads-software.com/WordPress_Installation_Techniques#Installing_WordPress_Locally
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Installing_WordPress

If you do a Google search for ‘An unexpected error occurred. Something may be wrong with www.ads-software.com or this server’s configuration.’ , you will find a lot of results with varying degrees of success for the fix.

The main ‘culprits’ seem to be certain themes and/or plugins and not WP or it’s servers specifically.

Out of curiosity, any particular reason for the ‘convoluted’ path to your local sites? ?? All you really need is /wordpress1, /wordpress2, etc. within htdocs.

Hi Lyle, Many thanks for the reply…

The main ‘culprits’ seem to be certain themes and/or plugins and not WP or it’s servers specifically.

Q1: Well my main/first question is:
Is it OK to have numerous (ie, more than one) WordPress-sites on the same domain, each in their own individual folder,
ie: Where each folder contains its own individual install of WordPress ?
(ie: NOT installing them as Network-MU-sites

Q2: And if its OK: Do I need to set anything extra (in the server) to allow these multiple site to function correctly ?

Out of curiosity, any particular reason for the ‘convoluted’ path to your local sites? ?? All you really need is /wordpress1, /wordpress2, etc. within htdocs.

Well, I have many different projects in my Xampp Server, so it’s just a convenient way to contain each one into its own folder, just like you would in Windows Explorer.
Originally the files in folder My_Web_Files came from a previous PC, so I needed to keep them separate, but I guess I could drop that folder in the future.

Q3: Why ? Do you see it causing a problem ?

BTW: The error message, now appears in both installs, but it didn’t appear in the first install, until after I’d done the second install.

Q4: How can I track down the cause of MY error message, I know you said do a search, but if no one else has my problem, how should I proceed ?

Q5: And…perhaps this is a dum question: But, am I likely to run into stability problems if I ignore the error message ?

Many thanks.

Hi Tara, Many thanks for the ‘useful codex’
But I’ve not been able to find a solution from there, so far.

Many thanks.

A1: It is perfectly ok to have multiple WordPress installs on a domain running in independent directories. Be sure to be using a different (database + table prefix) for each site.
A2:No change of settings is required.
A3: The only problem I would anticipate is the clerical difficulty of keeping track of what belongs to which path.

A4: Disable plugins and change themes.
A5: No.

Having considered your situation, I would suggest that you discontinue from using “localhost” as the domain name and instead configure your apache to use “VirtualHost”, this combined with adding names to your “hosts” file lets your locally served websites run under real domain names, just like they will on the internet.
Details here: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/vhosts/name-based.html
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_%28file%29

A1: It is perfectly ok to have multiple WordPress installs on a domain running in independent directories. Be sure to be using a different (database + table prefix) for each site.

Hi Ross: Many thanks for your clear reply & links.

BTW: When I installed wordpress using its installer, its database-connection-details page/form, shows the ‘Table Prefix’ default value as: wp_

…and its legend says:
‘If you want to run multiple wordpress installations in a SINGLE database change this’

Q1: So: As each site has its OWN-database:
Does each site NEED to have a different-table-prefix ?

Re: Database names:
At the phpMyadmin control-panel:

When I created the first database: wordpress_db_1
…it was listed in the panels lefthand column, as: [+] wordpress_db_1

But: When I created the second-database: wordpress_db_2

…BOTH-databases were then automatically re-listed in sub-directories of: [+] wordpress

[-] wordpress
[-] db
[+] wordpress_db_1
[+] wordpress_db_2

ie: phpMyadmin automatically created what seems to be a sub-directory for each _ (underscore) in the databases name.

Q2: So is this the case (ie: are they really in sub-directories) ?
Or is this just a visual thing, done to make the listing more tidy ?

Many thanks

Q1: So: As each site has its OWN-database:
Does each site NEED to have a different-table-prefix ?

A1: Using the same table prefix is acceptable. Strictly speaking it is the combination of (database+prefix) which needs to be distinct. Note that it is considered poor security practice to use the default prefix “wp_”, it makes certain “SQL injection” attacks much easier.

Q2: So is this the case (ie: are they really in sub-directories)

This is just a phpmyadmin thing, trying to be “helpful” in organizing your thoughts. The reality is that the only thing that matters is the whole database name, it contains no structure or functionality. Still I find the “project” level view of phpmyadmin to be helpful.

Hi Ross:
Again: Many thanks for your clear & helpful replies, it’s is greatly appreciated !

Thanks everyone, for now I thinks that this is resolved.