When pulling from WP Engine sites pull will randomly display failure message at domain search/replace. Closing notification window will then show update successful message but files included in wp_settings will be missing when opening the site. Only solution so far is to do fresh pull to new local site.
I have tried changing the PHP and WP versions as well as pulling all files, select files and only newer files and all files. I’ve also tried site domains and localhost.
What steps can be taken to replicate the issue? Feel free to include screenshots, videos, etc
Pull site from WP Engine. Again, it is random and doesn’t always fail. I have sites that I have successfully pulled in the same day then this issue can appear.
System Details
Local Version:
Version 9.0.4+6699
Operating System (OS) and OS version:
Apple M3 with Sonoma 14.5 (23F79)
Security Reminder
Local does a pretty good job of scrubbing private info from the logs and the errors it produces, however there’s always the possibility that something private can come through. Because these are public forums, always review the screenshots you are sharing to make sure there isn’t private info like passwords being displayed.
If you download a backup and direct import as a workaround, do you run into the same issue? This might help to determine if the issue is with something in the connection or within the site’s configuration.
Importing via back up does work, as does creating a new instance in local and pulling fresh. Some of these sites are larger, some are relatively fresh sites just under development.
I cannot pinpoint the exact time this started but It has been within the last month. Some of these local sites were well over a year old and I was able to regularly pull with no issue. As I mentioned in the original post this seems to be random. One site in particular I pulled a half dozen times in a day to catch up with changes and suddenly this issue happens. I disconnected the existing site from WPE, created a new one and carried on.
The reason I ask about the size is that while we don’t have any built-in “limits,” the size of site, the number of media, the number of plugins, or the amount of DB bloat can all contribute to connectivity issues. Often what we see with these larger sites is exactly what you’re describing, intermittent results that sometimes need a second or third attempt to finish.
As a workaround for sites like these, the best solution is to directly import a backup and then migrate the site back up. WPE has a free migration plugin that will work from Local to WPE, for example.
It’s worth mentioning that a lot of the above can also be common culprits for performance and security issues on live sites as well. It’s always better to remove unused plugins, optimize or offload media, and keep the database slim and trim to help the site remain more performance and safe.
We go over all of the above in our guide here:
If you feel like you’re having issues with sites where none of the above is applicable we’ll be happy to try and drill down further. For example is there anything unique about your network that you use to connect? Do you perhaps use a VPN or company network that might be filtering or throttling your connection?
In this case, the site that I submitted the errors from is still pretty small. With resources etc it barely breaks 450Mb total storage used and 37 of that is database.
I missed the last part of your response. No, there is no VPN and this happens both when I’m in office as well when I’m on my home network. Off hand I cannot think of anything that might point to a network issue.
Great details, @clerick! It’s a bit tricky since it’s so intermittent, but we can continue to try to drill down. The fact that direct importing works without issue likely rules out anything in the site that conflicts.
On your machine are you running other developer applications simultaneously? Apps like MAMP, XAMPP, or Docker for example.
When you’re pulling do you often have several other sites running in Local already?
I have had no system updates until just about an hour ago (issue still persists). I cannot say for certain but it from my memory it is possible that this started after upgrading to Local 9.0.4, the time frame seems to match up but that’s from memory so I am not 100% certain that it started after that update. I am currently on 9.0.5 so this has been an issue across at least two Local versions.
I may be able to try another system but it’s running Fedora.
I was able to get logs from his issue, just in case there is anything relevant to this. local-logs (1).zip (1.1 MB)
He is running on a Mac M1 and the site he pulled is one that I’ve had issues with as well. The main difference is that when he pulls he doesn’t get an error modal like I do, he just get’s a red notification across the top saying that it failed.
I’m not sure that it’s relevant exactly but I was able to “revive” two of the Local sites that had gone bad by not using Magicsync and just syncing all files. After that search replace worked and I was able to log in to the Local copy.
Hi @clerick Thank you for the follow up! So the issue has been intermittent but is there a specific site or sites where it’s usually happening other than the example you gave previously?
@Nick-B I can’t be certain but it doesn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason to it. Especially since there have been times where I can pull a site multiple times in a day and then suddenly a pull goes sideways. When I get a chance to test I will see if I can find any commonality. We do only use WP Engine for out hosting so that is the only universal element that I can think of, but I will try and recreate it.
After you had me downgrade and test I did come back to the current release and so far the issue has not come back. I did test a few things based on your earlier questions. I pulled a site with only it running as well as pulling another site with more than one site running and it all went smoothly. I have even been able to resurrect a few broken installations by just pulling again as I normally would.
I took a break from this response and had a change to test a few things and so far the issue has not come back with any site… yet.
We really appreciate all of your diligence and communications here, @clerick! It’s also good news that it seems like it is becoming even more infrequent for you. Understandably, it’s tricky for us to pinpoint when it’s something we can’t easily replicate and say, “Every time I pull this specific site or any site from this account, the problem happens.” I’m not seeing any specific errors in your logs that indicate a singular culprit, either.
The logs from your peer did have some interesting errors within. Are they still having issues as well? Or have things seemed to died down for them also?
