How to Import Wordpress Site from a Remote Server

The following video shows how to import a wordpress site from a remote server.  This is handy when you are moving your website to Webquarry.

It covers ONLY the act of importing the wordpress site and nothing else.  It assumes you know how to log into the control panel, how to add domains to it, etc.  You can likely find help for these items in the FAQ system and you can find items that feature videos in this subsection.

This video assumes that you are moving your website content before you move the domain name.

Here are the steps listed in order:

  1. Request a temporary domain from us if you do not have one that you can use on your hosting account.
  2. Add the temporary domain to your hosting account.
  3. Click the Installatron item in hosting control panel.
  4. Click the tab with the star on it to list all the available Apps that Installatron has available.
  5. Find and click the Wordpress item.
  6. Find the hamburger stack icon to the right of the Install this application button and select the import option.
  7. Select the option to import from a different account. (right side)
  8. Fill out the Source information:
    URL of the existing website
    IP Address (optional) - leave blank
    Protocol (use ssh or ftp) ssh is best but ftp can be used if the remote server doesn't support ssh.
    Username
    Password
    Path - try "public_html" if you are not sure.  This is a decent guess.  If you know the path, use that instead.
  9. Fill out the Destination by selecting the temporary domain that was added to your account
  10. Click the Import button and wait a few minutes.

In case of errors:

The act of importing a wordpress site from a remote server is a very complicated procedure and many things can go wrong.  The source application has to be working 100% for this to have any hope of working.  You have to know the username, password and path to the files on the remote server.  This has to be exact.  We have no way to guess at it.  In addition, there any many configuration settings that the remote host can choose that could stop our script from working.  Here are a few errors that you might see and some possible solutions.

mysql database connection failed:
host = localhost
database = user123_dbname
username = user123_dbuser
password = **HIDDEN**
prefix = wp_
errstr = Could not connect to `localhost` using the username `user123_dbuser` and password **HIDDEN** (mysql) -- Access denied

We were unable to read the Wordpress config file on the remote server or file contains inaccurate login information.  Possible causes:

  • if the db values aren't correct (the source app needs to be working 100% for import to work).
  • if the db user doesn't have full privileges enabled (or some useful subset) then that could cause this error.
  • if "127.0.0.1" or "localhost" or the user's domain or the domain's IP address are blacklisted by the server's firewall.
  • if the server is using WAF/modsecurity then it could contain rules that block Installatron's script.
  • the use of open_basedir in the user's domain's PHP configuration might be able to block access.
  • the use of disable_functions in the user's domain's PHP configuration might be able to block access (don't block the *mysql* functions for example).
  • if the user's domain is using PHP 5.x then the use of the 'suhosin' extension could also block access.

 

! Could not authenicate with the provided login and password.
  • if you do not have the right hostname, username or password for the remote server.  Try what you have in your favorite ftp program to see if they work.

 

! This import will require 1MB of available disk space to complete. Sufficient disk space is currently not available.
For assistance or to add additional disk space, contact your web hosting administrator.
Technical Error: Unable to create directory `/public_html/blog'.

This error might sound a bit confusing but it indicates that you do not have the path correct.  We were able to log in, but we were unable to move into the path that you provided.  

Get help

If you cannot make it work, do not despair.  Open a ticket and tell us all the values that you have and we will be happy to try it out for you.  If the import feature simply will not work due to limitations at the remote side, Wordpress can always be migrated manually and we are happy to assist with that too.

  • wordpress, howto, video guide, installatron
  • 0 Users Found This Useful
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