How to transfer or migrate your WordPress website (also MODX, Drupal, Joomla)

Media Temple uses a custom wp-config.php where the database server name is an environment variable:$_ENV{'DATABASE_SERVER'}. This variable cannot be detected properly by our migration utility.

To prepare for this, access the MediaTemple File Manager and complete these steps:

1. In the web root (typically /home/domain/{domain}/html), create a file called dbserver.php and put within it: <?php echo $_ENV{'DATABASE_SERVER'}; ?>
2. Use your browser to visit http://{domain}/dbserver.php and copy what you see there.
3. Edit wp-config.php and replace $_ENV{'DATABASE_SERVER'} with the value you saw in the browser wrapped in single quotes. The line should look similar to this: define('DB_HOST', 'internal-db.sXXXXXX.gridserver.com');

You can now proceed with the migration

PHP Memory limits tend to be super low (64MB). Sadly Netfirms refuses to allow an increase beyond 64MB for shared hosting, making the migration manual.

You will require FTP (or SSH/SFTP) credentials to access your former hosting company, including:

1. Server hostname or IP: often ftp.yourdomain.com or you can use IP address or hostname of the source web server. If the source host uses cPanel this is ususally shown at the top of the dashboard.
2. The username and password
3. The ‘path’ or web root to the WordPress files at the old host.

How to create a new FTP account

If you can, it’s much simpler to create a new FTP account at the source host, than it is to try to use an existing account. When you create the FTP account, you’ll be provided the option to select the FTP User/Account Home Path. Be sure to set this path to the web root folder: the folder where WordPress is installed for this website.

How to determine the FTP web root path

If your source host has a file manager tool, open it, then navigate your way to where WordPress is installed, making note of the folders you opened to get there. When you see files and folders that begin with “wp-“, like the wp-config.php file and folders wp-admin and wp-includes, this will be the folder where WordPress is installed.

The folders you opened to reach those WordPress files will be your web root path and will look something like this: /folder1/folder2/folder3. Therefore, when creating the FTP account, set the home folder to this path.

Here are some common examples of web root paths:

• Hostinger
  • When the FTP username has the domain name in it: /public_html
  • When the FTP username does not have the domain name in it (it’s the root user): /domains/{your_domain}/public_html
• MediaTemple: /home/domain/{your_domain}/html
• MODX Cloud: only provides SSH access, use path: www or if that fails try /www The server hostname, username, and password can all be found under the “SSH/SFTP Connection Information” in your MODX Cloud panel.
• Hosts that use Plesk Panel:
  • When it’s the primary domain: /httpdocs
  • When it’s an addon domain: /{your_domain}
• Hosts that use cPanel:
  • When it’s the primary domain: /public_html
  • When it’s an addon domain: /public_html/{your_domain}
  • Note: sometimes addon domains are /{your_domain} – we don’t know why it differs sometimes and not others.

No home path option when creating FTP account, or using Hostinger? If your host doesn’t have the ability to set the home path for your FTP or SFTP user, or if the host is Hostinger, enter this path when initiating the migration within 1-click web apps instead.

Switching to an SSH/SFTP connection? The web root path may be different for an SSH connection, so if you decide to try the SSH type migration, the path you found here might not work. See Troubleshooting below for details on this.

Use an FTP app to test a login?

If you have an FTP app on your computer, you can verify you have the right details by logging in to the source host to test that the connection works. This also makes it a bit easier to figure out what your ‘path’ value should be.

Initiate FTP Migration from Destination

1. Log in to Plesk
2. Choose 1-click web apps. If you are not hosting with us, you must find your own way to the Installatron (1-click web apps) utility.
3. If you already have at least one application installed, you’ll need to choose the “Application Browser” tab in the upper right corner. If not, then you should already be there!
4. Scroll down until you see WordPress (or use the search box in the upper right corner) and click on it.
5. If you see a button on the right that says “Import Existing Install”, click it. If not, you’ll see a button that says “Install this application” with a downward pointing arrow on its right side — click the down arrow, then choose “Import Existing Install”.
6. Under the “From different account” part of the page, click the Continue button.
7. Migration Settings (anything not described here should be left at its default value):
   • Source URL: is the URL to the website you’ll be transferring. Visit the site in your browser, then copy/paste the URL from the address bar into this box.
   • Protocol: Choose the “FTP with TLS/SSL” option as it’s secure and it is the type of connection that is most commonly accepted by hosting providers. If it does not work, then you will need to use regular insecure FTP. If you instead opt to use SFTP or SSH, be sure to check out the troubleshooting section below on this topic
   • FTP Server or IP: either try ftp.{domain} or use the server host name or IP as found in the source host’s control panel.
   • Username + Password: Be sure to supply the correct FTP connectivity details from your source hosting provider.
   • Path: If you were able to configure the FTP Home path to your WordPress install using the instructions above, then you must leave this value blank. If you were not able to specify an FTP Home path, use this field to enter the path you found using the instructions above.
   • Destination: Choose the domain to which you’ll be migrating your website.
   • Directory: You’ll likely want to keep the directory field blank unless you are planning on having your website visible at a subdirectory like this: yoururl.com/directory and not just yoururl.com.
8. Click Import

1-click web apps will now complete the import of your external WordPress installation into your account on your new web hosting provider.

Congrats, you’re done! If you encountered any errors or problems, see the troubleshooting section below to learn how to fix the most common issues with migrations.

This error might occur when using the “WordPress” protocol to initiate the migration.

When you get this error it means something at the source blocked access to install the necessary plugin, which prevents the migration from proceeding.

If the source host is using Imunify360

1. Login to Plesk
2. Under the domain for the site you’re migrating, choose “Web Application Firewall”
3. About half-way down the page you’ll see the heading “Switch off security rules” and in the “Security rule IDs” box, enter the following IDs then press the Apply or OK button:

77350110
77316819

If there are other IDs already in the box, you may add these two them on a new line. If these IDs already exist in that field, you do not need to add them again.

SECURITY NOTE: after the migration has completed, please remember to follow these steps again to remove these IDs – they only need to be disabled for the migration.

If the source host is not Websavers and does not use Imunify360

Another security system is likely blocking the automation. That could be a security plugin like WordFence, or another ModSecurity ruleset.

There are two ways to fix this:

1. Check the logs at the source host to determine what’s doing the blocking and disable it, or talk to the source host’s support to see if they can help identify and resolve the block.
2. Use the FTP protocol to do the migration (steps above).

We don’t yet know why but this plugin’s product options do not import successfully. You must use their export/import tools to transfer the settings.

This occurs when there are large files on the source server and the source server’s max execution time is low (like 30 seconds or less) or when there isn’t enough space on the source server to create the necessary backup files to transfer the site.

It is recommended to proceed through these solutions in order, one at a time, then attempt the transfer after each, as any one of the solutions could resolve the problem for you. They are listed in order of most likely solution to least likely solution to resolve the problem:

Solution 1: Free Up Space. This error will also occur (less frequently) if your source host is out of disk space. You must have sufficient disk space on your source hosting account to create a copy / backup of your site files. If you do not, you will need to ask your host to increase the storage temporarily or remove some files before proceeding. Alternatively you can migrate your site manually.

Solution 2: Remove Large Backups. Larger files (typically > 500MB) will create problems for our migration utility. Please delete any backups found within backup plugins like BackupBuddy, All In One Migration, etc. unless their combined size is less than 50MB. If you need the backups, download them to your computer before removing them. This is just one reason why we don’t recommend using plugins to backup your site.

Once the large files have been removed from the server, you can complete the steps above once again to successfully complete your transfer.

Solution 3: Change PHP Settings. Increase the PHP max execution time on the old host plus memory limit and post max while we’re at it.

If the source host is using Plesk, navigate to the PHP Settings button for the domain and change the values as shown below.

If the source host is using cPanel, go to the “PHP Selector” button (hopefully your host has this). You will now have one of three options: 1) Options on the far right, 2) Settings on the right, 3) You may instead be presented with the option to create a custom PHP INI — do this and then configure the following three values to match and save your changes.

max_execution_time = 600
memory_limit = 256M
post_max_size = 64M

If you don’t have the option to change those values within the control panel (example: if the PHP options page has nothing on it other than the PHP version), you could try adding the three lines above to a file called .user.ini file OR a php5.ini file (either existing, or create a new one via FTP or file manager).

If the source is GoDaddy, see GoDaddy’s PHP config here.

If the host is using php as an apache module (this is unlikely unless your host uses very old systems), you can add the above directives in the following format to the root .htaccess file (use the file manager):

php_admin_value max_execution_time 600
php_admin_value memory_limit 256M
php_admin_value post_max_size 64M

Of none of the above options work, then that unfortunately means the host does not allow you to change those values. You can try contacting their support to see if an admin will set them for you.

If an admin will not set them for you, you can still keep the failed migration, then manually copy the files — Installatron will have already copied the database for you.

This might mean that the source server only supports PASV/Passive mode connections and our firewall is blocking the necessary outbound ports to allow that to happen. To fix this, we’ll need to temporarily whitelist the IP address of the source server:

• If you have your own VPS, you can do this from within Plesk under Tools & Settings > Firewall or Imunify360.
• If you’re hosted on a shared server, open a ticket and provide us with the IP or hostname you’re connecting to so that we can whitelist it for a few days. Please be absolutely sure that you can connect with that username and password using an FTP app on your computer before opening a ticket about this.