XF 2.2 Migrating Xenforo to new hosting service

carino

Member
Greetings All,

I am in the process of migrating my web site from the existing hosting service to another host. So far, I have moved the domain over but I have not yet changed the DNS. So it is still pointing to the old host service.

I migrated the web site over and tested it using a temporary URL. It seems to work fine.

I'm in the process of migrating the Xenforo forum over now. I am not certain I am doing this right and hoping someone can give this a quick lookover and see if I have any errors in what I am trying to do:
  • Copied the entire directory from the existing host to the new host. This directory I have named as "community" and it contains the Xenforo code. For example, the config.php file in the src directory.
  • I performed an export of the database using phpMyAdmin on the existing host and then used import to restore that database on the new host.
  • I changed the username, password and dbname in the config.php file
  • Made sure the permissions on the folder "internal_data" were set same on new host as existing host.

When I attempt to access the Xenforo index.php file i use the following address ...

And I get msg that the requested page could not be found. But, it indeed is there. When I attempt to login anyway, it directs me back to the existing hosting service.

I am looking to see if anyone has some things for me to check.

Alternatively, I would willing to pay someone who can do a migration for me.

Thanks,

Steve.
 
Last edited:
I am not an expert myself.
Not sure what you mean with "you moved the domain over". If you haven't changed the DNS, the domain will always forward to the current one, so it is not moved over.
Also instead of using temporaryURL, use the IP address. Sometimes it takes time until the domain works.
Another thing is try to use ..../community/admin.php to see if you have access there.
 
I am not an expert myself.
Not sure what you mean with "you moved the domain over". If you haven't changed the DNS, the domain will always forward to the current one, so it is not moved over.
Also instead of using temporaryURL, use the IP address. Sometimes it takes time until the domain works.
Another thing is try to use ..../community/admin.php to see if you have access there.

I should have clarified ... I transferred domain registrar from old service to new service, and I have not changed the DNS so it is still pointing to existing and active location. So, yes, I have not actually "moved the domain".

I successfully accessed ..../community/admin.php and logged in as the admin. That seems to work fine. Here is the full URL ...

What I want to test is to log in as a general user using this URL ...

But when I do that it takes me to the existing host URL (the current active site) where the URL is ...

Do you know if there is a configuration entry where the URL is set that is causing this?

And, perhaps there is really no problem at all. Maybe all I need to do is to change the DNS and see if that "fixes" things. But, I am concerned that making that change will cause a problem for users trying to access the forum.

Thanks,

Steve
 
I can access the forum on the ip address, so it works fine.

I see, I think I know the problem. It happens to me all the time when I use my localhost setup and that is the first thing to do.

Disable this and see if it works:

1609024410083.png

ACP->Options->Basic Board information


Note: It was the Board URL which needed to change in ACP.
 
If you can before you change your DNS over change the TTL (Time to Live) figure within the DNS to something like 18000

This needs to be done more than 24hours before you change your DNS to the new IP address as the new figure needs to propogate once saved and will only do so using the existing figure which defaults to 86400 in most cases.

Basically what it will do is speed up the DNS change by telling providers to renew their cache every 5 minutes instead of the default 24 hours.
Some will ignore it but others will act on it.

Once you are happy with the change over you can then change it back to the default.
 
As above, change the board URL to your temporary domain

Also set the directory 'data' and the directories within it to 777

I checked permissions for the existing data directory and they are set as follows:

1609025983201.webp

Same permission are set on the new data directory.

Why do you say set to 777 as 755 seems to work now?

Thanks,

Steve
 
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