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Site Restoration

#40428 Migrate a site from one host to another with Akeeba

Posted in ‘Site restoration’
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Environment Information

PHP version
n/a
CMS Type
WordPress
CMS Version
n/a
Backup Tool Version
n/a
Kickstart version
n/a

Latest post by nicholas on Wednesday, 13 March 2024 08:29 CDT

[email protected]

Good morning,

I would like to know how to migrate a site from one host to another with Akeeba.

I have already restored several of my sites successfully but without changing servers. When I try to restore a backup on another server I get problems. I tried three times and three times I had problems

Site 1: All pages no longer existed except the admin pages and the index.
Site 2: The site theme was broken
Site 3: No extension has been imported

If one day one of my servers burns down, how can I restore a backup to another server and be sure there is no problem?

Sincerely

-Axel

tampe125
Akeeba Staff

Hello,

I can see you're using WordPress, is that a multisite installation or a single site one?

Davide Tampellini

Developer and Support Staff

๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡นItalian: native ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งEnglish: good โ€ข ๐Ÿ• My time zone is Europe / Rome (UTC +1)
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager

You can definitely move a site between servers. This is the primary use case, and the reason this software exists. It's just so happens that when you transfer a site to the same serverโ€ฆ it's a backup! People are more likely to look for backup software rather than site transfer software โ€“ even though ours is both โ€“ which is why we market it as backup software.

It's funny that you said "if one day one of my servers burns down" because this is literally what many of our clients used their backups taken with Akeeba Backup for two years ago, when OVH's data centre went up in flames due to an electrical fire caused by a faulty UPS battery unit. Our clients who where religiously taking backups of their sites, storing them on off-site storage (outside of OVH) were able to restore their sites on a different host and resume business as normal. We had quite a few thank-yous coming our way.

Regarding the first two problems, edit your .htaccess file and remove everything that's not part of WordPress' own .htaccess. If you don't know how to do that, there's an option in the upper right hand side of the Site Setup page of the restoration script.

Regarding the last problem, it sounds like you are trying to restore on top of an existing site. It's best not to do that. Remove all existing WordPress files and folders, and use an empty database to restore. This way you can be sure that anything already present on the server won't interfere.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ทGreek: native ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งEnglish: excellent ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ทFrench: basic โ€ข ๐Ÿ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

[email protected]

Thank you for your explanations, I understand better now. Indeed I was referring to the OVH fire two years ago. So I tried to migrate a site using Kickstart and it seems to work correctly. Thank you for your help !

Sincerely

-Axel of Kickngo

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager

You're welcome :) Have a wonderful day!

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ทGreek: native ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งEnglish: excellent ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ทFrench: basic โ€ข ๐Ÿ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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