What is the best way to transfer a WordPress site to another server

I tried to transfer a WordPress site to a new server, but without any luck. I did this many times, but now with CMM it's a little difference.

My installs are made with 22-1 and I changed that on the new server.
Every time I create a new site using another option than 22-1 and transfer the backup of the site to the new server. After that I want to import the SQL, but that gives me got errors.

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Deleted the SQL, imported the old one, nothing seems to go right this time.

I tried to manual rename tables, import them each by each. Well spent all afternoon/evening to get the job done. But at 08:00 GMT -1 it has to be online on the new server!!! So I'm running out of time.

What is the best way to transfer it when using CMM. Already tried the easy way with duplicator, but that also was a no go.

 

hmm, guess it's a little late now, but :
1) I uploaded the old site, changed the DB settings in wp-config.php and DROPED the content and imported the old one ->> Setup page of WordPress appears
2) Duplicator ->> Same story, wipes some other plugins and setting made by the installer of CMM
3) Copy DB --> Both ways manual and with phpmyadmin
4) Dropped old tables, changed all references in editor, saved each table, imported tables one by one --> Setup appears again.
5) Several other ways not mentioned before, but don't remember details.

Site name is the same, not added a www (sub domain for a country), other CMM sever with other caching.

In all methods used I made sure that my wp-config.php had the correct db settings.

I made transfers too so many sites in the past and never had any problem with it.

 

Yep, I use it also, take just a second to change the domain, it reflexes almost instantly to the new DNS.

 

Yes, prefix was set correctly

Pure-Ftpd with SecureFX

But are a little busy now to check it again, that Cloudflare issue gave me many work that needs to be resolved first. Sending e-mails to companies to explain what happened with Cloudflare. Got many rejections on requests that I made last Friday.

 

OK, finally got things working, except the SSL because had to many attempts with Let's Encrypt. Already copied them over from the old server, but guess I did it wrong. Now I get an SSL error on the site. That's not a problem because I hide behind a Cloudflare SSL, but want to get things have things good.

Steps I took:
I like a clean server not with old setting when using the other above suggestions that keep any garbage from an old install. Also don't like my desk to be a mess, nor my desktop. So it was a little more work.

1. Downloaded all content from old server to my local machine
2. Switched to new server on with Cloudflare DNS to prevent Let's Encrypt errors.
   
3. Created new vhost on new server
   
4. Printed settings of new Nginx helper plugin to use later in new vhost on new server.
   
5. Switched back to old Server to prevent downtime with Cloudflare DNS
   
6. Uploaded only the important things / plugins / theme and some other things because had a change in caching method ("Redis") so I did not want to have the old drop-in plugins etc.
7. Created new BD of backup from old DB
8. Dumped old DB
9. Create correct user and permission
10. Cleanup old DB and users created in previous attempts.
11. Switched again with Cloudflare to have the site online!

Job done in (slow) but clean manner. Only the SSL issue, I need to fix that ASAP. So any suggestions on how to fix the SSL are welcome

And thanks for the above suggestions, but these really gave some problems. (have some stuff out of public folders for security reasons). So FTP was needed.

 

Well I already did add the tool

Code (Text):

./acmetool.sh acmeinstall

and copied them but noticed on another site that I created but I'm missing some items.

The copied site has these and I placed these inside the /usr/local/nginx/conf/ssl/yourdomain.com on the new server.

Code (Text):

ls -lah
total 36K
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  270 Jun 24 23:54 .
drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root  200 Jun 24 19:34 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  340 Jun 24 23:23 acme-vhost-config.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  424 Jun 23 19:58 dhparam.pem
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3.5K Jun 24 23:23 nl.domain.com-acme.cer
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.7K Jun 24 23:23 nl.domain.com-acme.key
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.3K Jun 24 23:23 nl.domain.com.crt
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  340 Jun 24 23:23 nl.domain.com.crt.key.conf
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.1K Jun 24 23:23 nl.domain.com.csr
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3.5K Jun 24 23:23 nl.domain.com-fullchain-acme.key
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.7K Jun 24 23:23 nl.domain.com.key

When the new server created a new vhost it has some more: BTW the /etc/centminmod/custom_config.inc is the same on both servers.

Code (Text):

ls -lah
total 60K
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4.0K Jun 23 19:59 .
drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root  200 Jun 24 19:34 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  466 Jun 23 19:59 acme-vhost-config.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  424 Jun 23 19:58 dhparam.pem
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3.6K Jun 23 19:59 schweiz-domain.coupons-acme.cer
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3.3K Jun 23 19:59 schweiz-domain.coupons-acme-ecc.cer
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  302 Jun 23 19:59 schweiz-domain.coupons-acme-ecc.key
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.7K Jun 23 19:59 schweiz-domain.coupons-acme.key
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.4K Jun 23 19:57 schweiz-domain.coupons.crt
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1000 Jun 23 19:59 schweiz-domain.coupons.crt.key.conf
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.1K Jun 23 19:57 schweiz-domain.coupons.csr
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 6.8K Jun 23 19:59 schweiz-domain.coupons-dualcert-rsa-ecc.cer
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3.3K Jun 23 19:59 schweiz-domain.coupons-fullchain-acme-ecc.key
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3.6K Jun 23 19:59 schweiz-domain.coupons-fullchain-acme.key
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.7K Jun 23 19:57 schweiz-domain.coupons.key

Strange :?

 

I guess that changing the caching methods does not work the way I wanted. My WordPress entered into the recovery mode when adding a category and a menu item. I'm glad that I had the site running on the other server, so I could quickly switch, but I have to investigate what is the causes it. I have some spare domains to test. Also, noticed a drop in performance with the 22-Private testing method. Before, my site loaded in 650ms afterwards in 1400+ms

 

Issue with duplicator My fault.....

Dumping the files in private folder, yeah, that didn't work
Now in public folder and Cloudflare, well I never did a transfer of a site that easy

Did so many transfers, not only WordPress.

 

practise --> practice, using the keyboard also

Made many typos in CMM and it hung over there without an option to quit it.