Archived topic
Sections gone after copy to staging area
4 replies · Started by blackbird on December 19, 2017
Hi, we use web hotel WP Engine and they have a staging area, you can "copy" your live site very easy to the staging site for testing and maintenance (and then back again to live). But after I "copy" live site to staging all Sections (and their content) are totally gone in the staging area. It is just empty. Is there something I can do about it or does it not work to copy sections? Everything else was copied fine.
Using latest version of everything, and also a childtheme (but no bigger changes there).
Hi there,
This can happen if the URL is searched/replaced in the database manually. I'm surprised that WP Engine doesn't have a better system for search/replace, as doing it like that will delete serialized options like Sections.
Instead, a plugin like this should be used to replace the URL throughout the site: https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/better-search-replace/
That plugins takes serialized options into account.
Okey, I will ask them about it and hope for a solution. I get back to you tomorrow.
I get back right away: There is a solution, to use their new "Deploy site tool". It is so new I haven´t tested it, but I guess I will have to. Problem "solved". Thank you for answering!
WP Engine:
"our copy tool from live to staging (vice versa) isn't build to copy over serialized data. The workaround would be to not use the staging environment but use our deploy site tool. The deploy site tool allows you to copy content from one install to another and will copy over serialized data."
Awesome, thank you for sharing! I'm sure it will be helpful to others :)
