I have a WordPress site at the root of a bluehost account ( inside public_html ) and there is an add-on domain also residing in a folder named devsite inside public_html. We have spent months developing the content in the devsite to be ready to promote to production.
On Saturday, I made a control panel snapshot and downloaded copies of both the current production site as well as the development site. Then I tried the upgrade.
The first way I tried was to use a tool called DesktopServer on my Mac to import the devsite. That worked. I then tried to deploy it to the production domain as per instructions but the deployment failed.
I restored the site via the snapshot.
On Sunday I tried the “WordPress” way of FTPing the files to public_html and exporting the database, fixing the links using “Search & Replace for WordPress databases” and modifying the WP-Config to point to the new database. None of the pages on the site transferred, the menus didn’t transfer, the widgets were not set … in short, the promotion was a disaster.
Today, I tried the DesktopServer method on the Windows 7 machine at work. However, after making the site archive, DesktopServer reports that it is unable to locate the main index.php in the site archive but I checked and it is there.
I am out of ideas on how to move this site to production and would appreciate and guidance or help.
Thanks,
Jon