What am I missing about importing a live site to Local?

Support
1

What issue or error are you experiencing?

I’ve previously backed up a live site to Local a few months back, successfully.

Have just tried the exact same process with a client, and then with our own site, and both failed.

There are no plugins installed, and the child theme can’t be found.
It pretty much just creates a vanilla WP install. Not ideal.

What steps can be taken to replicate the issue? Feel free to include screenshots, videos, etc

Follow the Local process for importing a live site:

  1. Extract the wp-content folder (extracted after zip export) & export the SQL DB
  2. Zip them together
  3. Create a site > drop them into Local
  4. Configure it to match the PHP version, Web Server type and DB type
  5. Watch it install
  6. Log in and see that there are no plugins, themes, etc. Yay.

System Details

Local Version 9.0.5+6706

Win 11, 23H2

Local Logs

Happy to share logs with a Local engineer, but not on a public forum.

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.

2

Should also mention that I’m not keen on using any additional plugins, etc to achieve this. Just want the app to work as intended :slight_smile:

1 Like
3

Hey @wp-cli-is-on-fire

As an alternative you can create a new, blank site Local first and then manually import the content and database with the steps in our guide here:

Manually Import a Local Site

4

Thanks Nick, I’d given that a go too before reaching out to the forums. Unfortunately “open shell” just pops open the Windows CMD prompt/Terminal, which has no idea what any of the “wp” commands are, and thus fails.

Any other suggestions? Because this software doesn’t seem to work on multiple computers, with multiple different sites, etc

1 Like
5

Does it seem like your Windows machine is having any trouble making connections or potentially having trouble with permissions? If your new site is created and Started when you click Site Shell it should be able to run with WP-CLI commands unless it’s having trouble connecting.

When you’re saying the software doesn’t work are you saying you’re having any other issues or errors or is it just that you can’t get this specific site to import no matter what machine you try it on?

Is the site still live and hosted somewhere?

I’ve got a Windows 11 setup to test on over here but I can’t replicate any issues with importing or using WP-CLI from my end. Keep us posted however and we’ll do our best to assist.

6

I’ve tried the import process on my machine, which I’ve had success with previously, but now four failed attempts using various Local authored methods.

I’ve also tried to import different client sites with a fresh install of Local on different client machines, so I’ve been able to replicate this multiple times just this week.

All running Win11, full permissions, no connectivity issues.

Each time WP installed, it pulls in posts and pages, but no themes or plugins. And the media files are all broken too.

This despite the files all being in the local App folder, etc.

Any other ideas? I’d like to recommend this product but it appears very broken.

1 Like
7

Are all of these sites coming from the same host?

Do they all have different configurations or anything unique in their set up? Multsities, extra large databases, different server types, WP/PHP versions etc?

For a different alternative, you could try using the free plugin WP Migrate Lite, which will create a site export zip and then try that to see if it works around these import issues.

8

All were from different hosts (2+), all files were transferred across per the recommending Local documentation (multiple methods tested here), no multisite, no large sizes, etc.

Though I mentioned at the beginning my reluctance to use any additional apps to migrate my data (Local should just “work”), it appears that is required to use this app.

Would recommend that the instructions be updated to reflect that as a standalone product, this doesn’t seem able to migrate sites 100% (in fact, I’ve only had it work the one time, out of many attempts, with troubleshooting steps I can’t recall).

Thanks for your help all the same.

1 Like
9

Thank you for the follow-up and feedback @wp-cli-is-on-fire! Local’s native import can and does work for the majority of users. However, there are certain circumstances outside of our control that can lead to conflicts, in which case certain alternative measures might need to be sought out. With hundreds of thousands of regular users our app seems to work just fine for most. We can’t replicate any import issues on our end with Windows or MacOS at this time either; however, if you have any other questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to reach back out. We are always happy to help!