I have attempted to move my existing site to a new server, the domain is not changing.
I exported the database and downloaded the entire WordPress install and uploaded it to the new server, I then uploaded the database, updated the wp-config to connect with the new database.
The result wasn’t what I was expecting, the Specular configuration was not correct, the default pages, menus and logo were all back to the default. I started to reconfigure it but I am having issues with the text which is showing question marks in areas where you would expect to find spaces.
I looked at the documentation and it mentions exporting the settings but it doesn’t mention where the settings are exported to?
Right now I am switching back to my old server, do you have any recommended steps to move the site to a new server?
I have switched back to my old server and edited my hosts file so I can work with the new server. I have managed to get the site configuration as it was by importing a backup but now the pages and posts although displaying correctly have no content when I attempt to edit them with Visual Composer. All I get is the starting page saying that I don’t have any content?
I’ve managed to fix this issue myself, it looks like an encoding issue with the text in the database.
I was able to edit the database directly to remove space characters \x(A0) that were appearing as black diamonds with question marks, I’m guessing that this is the display when there is no characters available?
I also had to remove curly quotes, apostrophes and en-dashes and replace them with straight quotes, apostrophes and hyphens. Once I did that the Visual Composer was able to load the page content correctly.
I also had issues with the testimonial slides, especially where I had use hyphens in the Staff Position field, these couldn’t be overwritten via WordPress and had to be manually edited in the database directly.
Sorry for the late reply.
When you move the site from a server to another you can use the ‘WP Migrate’ plugin for a smooth transition. It will take care of replacing all urls from old to new domain.
Let us know if you need our help.
