WordPress Import Image problems

OK, So i’m trying to change my domain, and i’m having a nightmare. I don’t really understand the problem so i’m struggling to find a solution.

I started of trying to import everything in one go through WP Imports, this failed. So imported everything individually – Posts, Pages, feedback, media.

Everything worked except for images. This seems to be a common error and people suggest different ways to resolve, and so far nothing has worked. Currently i have olddomain.com hosting the images and newdomain.com hosting the files. This is fine and works no problem for me and i would be happy to keep it this way as i’m keeping both sites. But…

I am doing a 301 redirect from olddomain to newdomain, and once i install the htaccess file to redirect, some, not all, some of the images stop working on my newdomain. This is not acceptable as i have over 1000 posts and 33,000 images (inc. thumbs) so finding the ones which don’t work is not an easy task. There is no obvious reason some work and others don’t, i would have guessed either all work or none work, but it’s some, some are .jpg .jpeg .png .gif ect… but again some work, others don’t for all file types.

I still can not import media, whether i try and import All files or Just media ones.

I have now logged into my olddomain FTP and copied all files located in wp-content/uploads with the intention of installing this into the same place on newdomain, but as the posts still seem to link to the olddomain, i’m not sure this will have any benefit as the posts wont look for the image on newdomain.

I’m not sure what to do. Is there an easy way change the image links in all 1000 posts so that they direct to newdomain.com/uploads/… instead of olddomain.com/uploads/… if so this will fix my issue (i think)

if i contacted my host and asked them to create an exact copy of olddomain onto newdomain, will there be any lingering issues internally where setup was done for olddomain? (I would be happy to try this but it would mean losing all work done so far on newdomain)

or should i change my 301 redirect from doing the whole site to doing page by page so it doesn’t break my image links?

If you have any suggestion or want to know more about my problem, please let me know as im close to returning to olddomain for good.

Many thanks