Big sur, big problems

[tapps]

Issue Summary

i upgraded my mac to big sur, before exporting my local sites.

now I’m running into issues following all the help threads I’ve found.

Troubleshooting Questions

• i know i can just recreate all the sites again from scratch, re-clone the repo (theme) files, etc. but that is gonna take forever, so i’m hoping there is an easier way.
• i also don’t see a ‘sql’ folder within ‘app’ for most of my sites, so can someone tell me where i can find the database files so i can import them manually?
• one thread said to zip the old folder contents, but big sur won’t even compress the folder (and gives me the immensely unhelpful error “the operation could not be completed. undefined error: 0” … which tells me NOTHING) so this won’t work for me.

Replication

‘old’ local won’t even open on my computer.

System Details

local -v: just downloaded the latest, local 5.9.8 +5191
computer -v: MacBook pro, 2017
os -v: 11.1 (big sur)

[afragen]

I think you can get closer by looking in ~/Application\ Support/Local/run. Each of the folders in there should correspond to a site. Each site folder should contain a /mysql/data/ folder.

I hope this helps.

[tapps]

that’s very helpful for the new version of local. sadly the old “local by flywheel” folder (in application support) doesn’t have a run folder.

anywhere else this might be on the ‘old’ setup?

[afragen]

Unfortunately Local 3.x used a virtualized environment with VirtualBox. I think the files you’re looking for will likely be in there – somewhere.

I’m sorry @tapps, maybe @ben.turner or @clay can do better than I.

[tapps]

that’s ok. it’s actually helpful because that narrows it down for me. i’ll keep looking

[ben.turner]

@tapps – You’re on the right track, but you may not be able to get those raw DB files.

To summarize a bit:

• The sql folder is where Local will export the db when a site is stopped
• For Local lightning, the raw DB files are located where @afragen mentioned (within the ...run... folder)
• For Classic, the raw DB files will be located within a docker container, within the virtual machine. I’m not 100% sure where since inside the VM, they will be contained within each docker container.

I’m not an expert in virtualization, but I have tried restoring a VirtualBox vm from one machine to another. It definitely wasn’t easy, and I’m not 100% sure it will work on Mac (I did it on a Linux machine)

But basically, for Classic the VM’s disk is located in the .docker directory:

I’m not sure how to exactly extract what you need from the disk, since within that vm you’d have to go into the individual docker container for the site(s) you need the DB for, but maybe it’s possible?

You might scan this exhaustive guide, and while it doesn’t have Mac specific items, the later headings outline some options under Linux and Windows for mounting the virtual disk.

• See Section: “Methods that Don’t Need Powering on a VM”
  • How to Extract Content from VMDK Files: A Step-By-Step Guide

At the end of the day, if you have access to somewhat recent backup of the site, that will likely be easier, but if you really do need to save that data, this might be a way to do it. Good luck!