on moving/copying a drupal site
specifically a site using i18n, ubercart and secure pages...
Actually the heading should read "copying", since the orginal is not being removed. I'm copying a site to another domain in order to work on its further development there, including testing of updates, instead of doing that on the live site.
I'm now having some troubles copying a current site to the test domain, while earlier this really went without a hitch - but a few additional modules have bee installed.
When moving a site, some items need to be changed in order for the moved content to function on the new domain:
PHP, MySqL version:
- make sure these are the same
Secure pages:
- secure pages cannot work without a dedicated ip and a security certificate. Since the test site does not have these, it must be disabled, and best uninstalled. But that would need to be done before accessing the test site. I don't want to uninstall it on the original site, so I only temporarily disable it before copying the database, then:
- The secure pages admin section contains domain paths that need to be removed, before anything is done on the test domain. I change these inside the copied database (since I don't want to disable it on the live site), before running anything on the test site.
Language subdomains:
- the subdomains need to be set up.
- the symlinks need to be made.
Multilanguage:
- the user specified language domain must be changed to the new domain name, in Site configuration > Language > List > Edit language, in case language negotiation is by domain in Site configuration > Language > Configuration. I can also change this directly in the copied database, before running anything on the test site.
settings.php files:
- make changes according to the test domain site names for default and language subdomains.
htaccess:
- may contain sepcific domain name settings that must be changed (RewriteBase and RewriteRule: domain name with/without www, maybe others).
I've tried it twice now but it's not working. I must still be missing something:
The Foliage theme won't work properly (for example all images, icons), all Garland theme's small icons do not appear. While the file paths are correct, the file permissions are fine, the icons and images are in their correct locations. No newly uploaded theme will work.
In Ubercart checkout, the spaces between checkout adddress fields are extended, the address fields do not get populated by the previous address drop down box, the java population of provinces/states does not work and the shipping calculation is not getting done.
The admin menu (module's) menu bar can't be made to show.
Content references to images in the files directory or subdirectories are not found, while the paths are correct.
The cron has been run, the cache has been cleard a hundred times, I've run update.php a few times, checked every mention of old domain path in the code, also in the database. Can't check a "blob" though. This is quite confounding.
I'm getting the over max_allowed_packet warning after checking enable for the admin menu and saving the modules page - this does not happen on the original site.
Basically this means that my development site is stuck, while the original site is having trouble upgrading from Ubercart 6.x- 2.0-rc6 to rc7. Actually, Ubercart is now 091121 at 6.x-2.2, yet for the original site I prefer to stick with what is working and that is Ubercart 6.x- 2.0-rc6.