Transfer of site failing

To clarify:

– you downloaded all the WP site files from your GD hosting account
– you exported your GD hosted site’s database
– you created a new, empty database on your local server (which one are you using?)
– you imported the exported DB file into the new, local DB
– you edited the siteurl and ‘home fields in the wp_options table in the local DB to this value:

https://localhost/projects/recycling

– placed your downloaded WP files in a folder named recycling which is in a folder named projects which is in the root of your local server (www or htdocs)
– you edited the now local wp-config.php with the local DB credentials
– you logged in to the backend with https://localhost/projects/recycling/wp-admin installed and ran this plugin:

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/velvet-blues-update-urls/

— select all options EXCEPT the last one (GUID)

Once that is done, go to:

Settings > Permalinks and Save.

Thanks for the reply.

Everything you’ve said is correct – apart from I can’t login to the wp-admin. It seems to think the “localhost” is the main url. I hadn’t changed the options in the wp_options table in the DB so I did that and to still no avail.

I’m using XAMPP by the way, hope you can help.

Did you have any plugins installed on your site, especially caching plugins? If so, try disabling them by going into your wp-content folder and renaming the plugins folder to something like “plugins-disabled”. This may help you get to the next step.

Url’s are stored as serialized strings in the database, so changing the url only is not enough.

There is a script that will take care of this the proper way. You can download it here: https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/

You can find instructions how to use it on the download page.

Thanks for the help guys. I’ve fixed this now.

Hi connrb, could you tell us how you fixed it?