How To Import WPengine Backup Into Local by Flywheel?

Support Uncategorized
1

Hello,

I just started using Local by Flywheel.

I have a few sites hosted with WPengine. I’m considering moving some of the sites over to Flywheel but I would like to see how the workflow functions first between Local by Flywheel and the hosting platform.

WPengine allows for backups to be taken and downloaded. I have a backup created from the WPengine internal system.

How would I go about importing this backup into Local by Flywheel?

Here is a link to the backed up zip file created by WPengine’s internal system.

  • [Removed for privacy]

Thank you in advance for your help and I look forward to hearing back from you.

Thanks,
Mike

2

Hi Mike! To import a site within Local you can go to File > Import Site and then choose the backup file. You can also do this by dragging the file directly onto the Local window.

Thanks!
Keegan

1 Like
3

Hello Keegan,

Thanks for following up on this question.

Really!?

All I need to do is drag the WPengine zip file into the window and it’s going to unpack everything and the site will be up and running within Local by Flywheel?

Thanks in advance for your response.

Best Regards,
Mike

4

Yes! Local makes it easy for you to import your site so you can get it up and running in no time!

Keegan

5

Hello Keegan,

I was able to get the site imported like you said (that was super easy) BUT…

I’m getting an error message on the back end and at the top of the front end of the site.

I took screenshots and will provide them now.

Plugins List View
Plugins List View1621×745 933 KB
Error Message On Front End of Site
Error Message On Front End of Site1907×445 277 KB

Can you provide insight on how to resolve this or know what is causing this?

Thanks,
Mike

6

Hey Mike,

Can you try removing wpengine-common and mu-plugin.php in the wp-content/mu-plugins folder?

7

Hello Clay,

Thanks for following up with me on this.

I removed the wpengine-common and mu-plugin.php from the wp-content/mu-plugins folder and it removed the error notification showing on the front end of the site but not the error’s on the backend from Plugins panel.

Do you have any other recommendations or ideas?

Thanks,
Mike

8

Hmm, in that case, I would try moving from the “Preferred” environment to the “Custom” environment and selecting PHP 5.6.

Here’s how you can do that:

  1. Right-click on the site in Local’s sidebar
  2. Click “Export” and follow the prompts
  3. Drag and drop the exported .zip from Local back onto Local like you did with the original WPEngine backup
  4. When going through the import flow, make sure you select “Custom” with PHP 5.6.
9

Hey Clay,

I’ll try that, but the backup was taken from a PHP 7 environment with WPengine.

I’ll let you know the results once I follow your instructions.

Thanks for your continued help.

Best Regards,
Mike

10

Hello Clay,

I just want to follow up and let you know that your instructions fixed the issue.

I exported the install, selected Custom environment and changed PHP to 5.6, and the error messages on the Plugins panel is gone, and the site is exactly as it should be.

Does this mean that the WPengine environment the site was originally in was not a PHP 7 environment?

Do you mind offering more insight as to why this was the fix for this issue?

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Thanks,
Mike

11

Hey Mike,

The Preferred environment (and Flywheel, which it’s based on) use PHP 7.1. I’m assuming your WPEngine site is running PHP 7.0. There were a lot of deprecated features in PHP 7.1 so that’s most likely why you’re seeing the errors with 7.1 and not 7.0.

Considering the site’s running fine on PHP 5.6, I would try bumping the site up from 5.6 to 7.0.3. This is super simple since the site is now on the “Custom” environment. Simply go to the site in Local and then use the PHP version selector to change to 7.0.3.