Title: Take care when migrating Last modified: August 6, 2020 --- # Take care when migrating * [bootle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bootle/) * (@bootle) * [5 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/awful-avoid-2/) * UPDATE – thanks for response. Have reconsidered, was hasty. * As I was doing a quick and cheap migration for a friend, I didn’t anticipate such issues – and had done similar migrations dozens of times (but not with this gallery). Now understand it’s not necessarily plugin’s fault, but need to be aware thing’s aren’t always so straightforward. * I omitted to mention the original problem, which was when going in to edit a page (as admin), WP would throw an error. The normal technique is to go through the plugins, disabling them until the issue disappears. It disappeared when I disabled nextgen gallery. So I assumed that was the culprit. Then I looked at the front page of the website, only to see it was broken, and restored by re- enabling nextgen. Frustrated? You bet! Hence vented… * Not my site, was just migrating for a someone. The plugins were the usual suspects, nothing worrying, except FooGallery and FooLighbox which I hadn’t used before either. Possibly a clash. * Plugins: Advanced Custom Fields, All in One SEO Pack, Classic Editor, Contact Form 7, Easy WP SMTP, FooBox Image Lightbox, FooGallery, NextGEN Gallery, Simple 301 Rediects, Smush, Stricty Google Sitemap, Wordfence Security, WP Migrate DB Pro, WP Rocket. - This topic was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by [bootle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bootle/). - This topic was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by [bootle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bootle/). Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total) * [PolyWogg](https://wordpress.org/support/users/polywogg/) * (@polywogg) * [5 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/awful-avoid-2/#post-13214229) * As a long-time user, I’m a bit surprised by your “conclusion” that NGG was the problem. Particularly as you removed it and the site “broke”. Disabling a plugin is almost impossible to be the cause of breaking a site — literally you took it away. If it breaks at that point, it usually means the plugin was propping up a bad theme or plugin elsewhere. I’m also surprised that a supposed WP professional would be doing anything on a live site which is a bit odd too as you say you migrated it, so presumably, you would have migrated it to a staging site. * If you disable NGG, and the site doesn’t work, NGG isn’t the problem. What is MORE likely the cause would be a customized theme or a low-use plugin, considering NGG itself has more than 800k+ installs on literally thousands of different systems and works just fine. You might try the standard “fix” which is a) test on a staging site rather than live; and b) disabling all other plugins, switching to the WP Twenty Twenty theme (or equivalent) to see if it works in that environment. However, if all you do is WP Migrate (which clearly does not move NGG, see below and says so in its own instructions that it doesn’t work for sites with NGG, as does NGG itself saying it doesn’t work with WP Migrate), of course you break individual pages — all galleries that do more than simply style pictures from the media library, i.e. all galleries that are actually galleries not just blocks with pretensions — will not “degrade” gracefully as once you remove the plugins, the codes on those pages don’t work anymore. * However, fyi, the “non-standard” use of locations for its files are not a flaw, it’s a feature. Most professional photographers, for example, do NOT want their photos all jumbled together in the Media Library. They want them separate and protected from other plugins messing around with them. I’ve tried dozens of popular galleries, and quite frankly, the mixing together of files works if you have 1000 pics or less, better at 200 or less. It doesn’t work when you go to scale and want to host 100K photos. I have about 20K in so far, well beyond the limits of other galleries, and it works well BECAUSE of the separate file structure. Some installations are well up to 1M photos for professional photographers, and it works awesome for them. * As for your “warning”, it’s childish and laughable. I doubt someone who doesn’t even know the basics will be much of a cautionary tale for an plugin that is the most popular gallery of all time. But sure, you started with a broken site, you didn’t bother to read that WP Migrate doesn’t migrate sites with NGG, you have no idea why they would use a different file structure, you broke a live site rather than testing stuff on a staging site, think that disabling it broke the already-broken site, call yourself a WP professional, but blame NGG for the errors and then tell them “they’ve been warned”. I suggest you switch over to hosted blogger sites, seems more your level. * P. * [Mihai Ceban](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mihaiimagely/) * (@mihaiimagely) * [5 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/awful-avoid-2/#post-13216651) * Hey, [@bootle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bootle/) * I must say that I have had the chance to read your original comment on the review and it looked like you were bringing up 2 separate points. * 1) Problems after doing a site migration using WP Migrate caused by it not correctly importing the custom database tables and custom gallery folder that NextGen creates. * Let’s first check if you have followed the Basic Migration Outline: * **On origin site:** - Create a full verified backup of the site (all files and the entire database) - Clear transients - Copy all database tables - Copy gallery folders and contents * **On destination site (WordPress default installation):** - Ensure NextGEN Gallery plugin(s) are installed (and activated) - Paste gallery folders and contents - Paste (overwrite) all database tables - Clear transients - Optional, use Reset Option under Gallery > Other Options * 2) As for the second topic that you have brought up “The site crashed after disabling NextGen Gallery” – Any WP plugin once deactivated, doesn’t really load any of its code so whatever caused the site’s crash – that wasn’t NextGen Gallery. On a side note to this, please ensure that you aren’t using any third party addon plugins for NextGen Gallery that are making calls to NextGen Gallery plugin’s methods regardless it being activated or no. That will cause the site to crash because of a fatal error. * If you don’t feel that we have answered to the questions that you had – please feel free to start a topic: [https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/nextgen-gallery/](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/nextgen-gallery/) * P.S. [@polywogg](https://wordpress.org/support/users/polywogg/) Thanks as always for sharing your opinion and commentary on the subject Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total) The topic ‘Take care when migrating’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://ps.w.org/nextgen-gallery/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=2083961) * [Photo Gallery, Sliders, Proofing and Themes - NextGEN Gallery](https://wordpress.org/plugins/nextgen-gallery/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/nextgen-gallery/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/nextgen-gallery/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/nextgen-gallery/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/nextgen-gallery/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/nextgen-gallery/reviews/) * 2 replies * 3 participants * Last reply from: [Mihai Ceban](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mihaiimagely/) * Last activity: [5 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/awful-avoid-2/#post-13216651)