Troubleshooting: Site copy errors
Troubleshooting: Site copy errors
This guide will: Help you to identify and fix the issues causing your site copy to fail.
Contents:
For a general overview, check our guide to the site copy tool.
In short, for copies to work, we copy the files and database to the new location, create the site in the platform, and attempt to update the website’s connection string to the database. We also attempt to do a find & replace within the new site, looking for instances of the old URL and replacing it with the new.
If something goes wrong with any of the above, you may find that your site clone does not work as required. Here are the steps you can take to troubleshoot the issue.
The new URL is redirecting to the original:
This is the most common issue, and can have several underlying causes. We’ve listed them below, along with ways to fix the errors.
The database connection string is wrong
It may be that the connection string of the clone site is still set to use the original site’s database. Check that the database details in the connection string (using wp-config.php for WordPress) match those in the hosting platform.
Check our guide to accessing a database.
The core URL in the database hasn’t updated
If the core URL in the database still contains the original URL, the site will redirect. You can check and update the database using our guide to accessing a database.
The original URL is still present within the application
It may be that you have hard-coded links set to the original URL, which will need to be updated. For WordPress sites, it is worth SSH-ing to the server and running a wp cli search & replace.
Read the guide to accessing your SSH details.
Read how to connect via SSH.
Read about the search & replace command.
I’m getting a server error:
In the event that you’re seeing a server error displayed, the first thing to check is the site’s error logs, which will tell you what is causing the error.
Read our guide to accessing your site’s error logs.
The main cause of this issue is a static file path for a plugin. Any site clone will use a different file path to the original, so the paths within your application will need to be updated.
A good example of this is WordFence. The wordfence-waf.php file will always need to be updated with the new file path after a site copy.
Read the guide to performing WordFence tweaks.
If you have followed the above steps and still can’t resolve your site copy issues, raise a ticket with the support team.
Video tutorial:
Still having issues?
Further reading:
- KB ARTICLE or
- BLOG LINK
Updated 4 months ago