Questions about How to Move My MODx Site to a new server.

GoDaddy is going to migrate the files for me to cPanel. I'm not all that confident that the site will come out unscathed on the other side. Oh well, live and learn. Skytoaster from now on.

Quote from: mmcgee at Jul 10, 2014, 06:41 PM

Actually. I just ran a test on my own mac. When I unzip the archive I made, the contents are then still stored within a folder called: Archive. Thus, I am still faced with the issue of moving the new MODx files out to the root and merging them with the existing site directories.

I can't speak to what happens on a Mac, but if you read the directions carefully in the link I sent you, you extract the files locally, move to the folder the files get put into, and create a *new* archive there that just contains the MODX directories like assets/ manager/ and setup/. *That* archive is the one you transfer and it can be extracted in the MODX root.

When you move a directory, Mac simply replaces the original directory with the new one, so any and all files in the original are gone. However, you can use the Terminal app (I use a nice replacement call iTerm that is much nicer to use) and the mv or cp commands to copy in the UNIX manner, only replacing files in the original directories with the ones from the new, and leaving any other files not in the new directories (like core/config/config.inc.php) alone.

Well....

goDaddy claimed they could do the migration of my 2.2.8 MODx to the new cPanel, and think as a way of coaxing me to remain onboard. Took over a week. Now...the site actually loads, and friendly URLs are working... but.... I cannot log in to the manager. I get the Site temporarily unavailable! message. What's odd is that in navigating to the site, the Friendly URLs work, but there is no .htaccess file to be found.
At this point there is a MODx 2.2.14-pl install folder with all of the directories inside, yet there are also duplicates of those directories out in the public_html, so I don't really know from which directories MODx is running.
I copied the ht.access from the 2.2.14 install folder, modified it for Friendly URLs, but the cPanel will not allow me to change it's name to .htaccess.

Awaiting response from goDaddy. I have my backup of the old site, and my original install files for 2.2.8. I wonder if I should just trash what they've done, and recreate the database with my backup, and then run setup on my 2.2.8 to get it going, and then do the upgrade to 2.2.14.

Any thoughts, suggestions, greatly appreciated.

I suspect the problem is with the configured paths, and your site is technically loading from cache. Check the config files (core/config/config.inc.php, manager/config.inc.php, connectors/config.inc.php and /config.inc.php), and correct the paths/information where needed.

In regards to the .htaccess file, cPanel tends to create one by default and . files can be hidden by default. If you click to reset all interface settings it should prompt you to show/hide the . files when first accessing the file manager.

You should be able to create/edit the .htaccess file locally and upload it with FTP, but I would leave friendly URLs off and use no .htaccess file until the Manager and front-end are both working (you may want to use PhpMyAdmin to turn off the friendly_urls System Setting - in the modx_system_settings table -- change the 1 to a 0).

Also, in the root of the site there should be a config.core.php file that will tell you the path to the current core directory. In the core/config/config.inc.php file you can find the MODX_CORE_PATH definition. That's the directory that MODX is running from.

I'll try the phpMyAdmin. I did edit the ht.access, then uploaded it, but at that point cPanel would not allow me to change the name. I did a search for .htaccess and it appears as though one is already there, but I can't see it in the list of files.

Thanks for the helpful tips Bob. At least now I am a little less disoriented.

Took a bit on the phone before I determine the tech person — who I could not speak to directly was basically trying to go in an manually update every path. Yikes!

I'm trashing their migration and starting from scratch. We got the manager to load the nav menus and the resource tree, but nothing else. The fact that the manager says 2.2.8, yet they installed 2.2.14 makes me very nervous. I think I prefer to work from my backups. I have my original 2.2.8 zip so I can use that setup/index.php. to do a migration of my 2.2.8 and THEN do an upgrade to 2.2.14.

Thanks for your feedback Bob. Very helpful, and I definitely learned some new things.

OK. I'm jumping in and just going to start with my backup. I've modified the paths — hoping I have them correctly entered.

Probably the biggest hurdle will be the database import. I'm in completely new territory here. Initially I thought I would just rename the current database that goDaddy had moved over. However, I think all of there stuff is probably corrupt and too big of a headache to deal with at this point. I do not see an option in cPanel to rename, so I will just delete it and create a new one using the same name and login information, and then import my old database. Will that work? Then I can do the minor modifications like turning of the FURLs etc. Still reading through those instructions.

That should work fine if you exported your previous DB to a MySQL file and the version of MODX you install is the exact same version and the one it was exported from.

Also, be very sure the character set and collation you choose when you create the new database match the ones specified in the core/config/config.inc.php file from the 2.2.8 site. You'll also have to create a user for the new DB with full rights.

With respect to the paths in the various files, in theory, MODX will straighten them all out when you run Setup, which should be your final step in the migration of the 2.2.8 version.

I did a three-part article a while back on installing MODX that you might find helpful. It's a little more detailed than the official docs: http://bobsguides.com/blog.html/2013/03/24/installing-modx-part-i/

Here's one on how I upgrade MODX: http://bobsguides.com/modx-upgrade-faq.html.

SiteCheck is also handy in that it will check all the necessary MODX paths and URLs for you (and a lot of other stuff). It's not free, but it's nice to have around: http://bobsguides.com/sitecheck-promo.html