Title: Disabling Multisite Fears Last modified: August 20, 2016 --- # Disabling Multisite Fears * [Spidr](https://wordpress.org/support/users/spidr/) * (@spidr) * [13 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-multisite-fears/) * I installed Multisite and it has done more harm than good, IMO. I wish to back out gracefully but I am very afraid of the consequences. * Is there a recommended procedure for disabling Multisite? Is it enough to remove the enabling code from the wp-config.php? * Will there be unforeseen negative consequences down the road? * Will disabling multisite fix the complaints listed below? * Thanks in advance * Here are the complaints: 1. Multisite has not allowed me to achieve the intended purpose of creating a second site with the same initial content but new, different content in each site. * 2. It has changed, for the worse, the way I enter users. I am no longer able to use upper case characters in names, enter my own initial password, or prevent WP from emailing the user information to the new user (even with the checkbox which is expressly labelled for that purpose) * 3. I am no longer able to add plugins, including the one which allegedly fixes# 2. Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total) * Moderator [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/) * (@ipstenu) * 🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist * [13 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-multisite-fears/#post-3192862) * [http://wpmututorials.com/how-to/how-to-disable-multisite/](http://wpmututorials.com/how-to/how-to-disable-multisite/) * 1. Multisite doesn’t work that way. Each site has separate content. You can use plugins like New Blogs Defaults to set up your initial content. * 2. Yes. This is true. * 3. Yes you can. Go to wp-admin/network/plugins.php * Thread Starter [Spidr](https://wordpress.org/support/users/spidr/) * (@spidr) * [13 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-multisite-fears/#post-3192866) * Thanks Mike, you continue to be my personal angel. I will try not to abuse the privilege. * There’s a free ebook on the link you posted. I haven’t been through it yet but it looks promising. * I edited wp-config.php. I haven’t touched .htaccess Things are back to normal without harm. * I will now check out New Blogs Defaults. * FWIW, I tried the Multisite because of a previous recommendation to use Site Duplicator to achieve my goal. It, in turn, required that I set up the network. * Moderator [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/) * (@ipstenu) * 🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist * [13 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-multisite-fears/#post-3192887) * What was your goal? This? * > the intended purpose of creating a second site with the same initial content > but new, different content in each site. * Multisite can, easily, do that. You would make a network, and then set up a ‘ dummy’ site with your base content. Use a plugin like Site Duplicator, or Blog Copier, and Bob’s your uncle 🙂 * Added bonus: Sharing all your plugins and themes, so you don’t have install the same things 100 times. * Cons? Separating the sites later is a hassle. * Thread Starter [Spidr](https://wordpress.org/support/users/spidr/) * (@spidr) * [13 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-multisite-fears/#post-3192893) * Thanks again Mike * [sgnews.ca](http://sgnews.ca) * We’re a small, progressive online journal. The site above is the main site but we wish to have about five others. * Ideally, all journals will have parallel visual elements, colors, menus, layouts. But completely different content. No posts, pages, menus or categories in common. * One of them must have all elements in French. * I am (far) less afraid of having to duplicate efforts to achieve this than I am of having changes made to one site affect the others. * The goal is to have volunteers and part time staff look after content while I, or someone like me, keeps them all running. * My experiments thus far have produced three sites in three separate places: two domains and one sub-domain, all of which are actually the same site. They share a common dashboard and changes to one affect the other two. Logging into any of them sends you to the main site. * This is the polar opposite of my intent. * My thought was that I would clone the original site to a new location, delete everything extraneous, and start over. * I spent a lot of time figuring out how to copy over the dbase. But the result was as described above, the same site in multiple locations. * I hope this helps. * Thanks again. Dylan * Moderator [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/) * (@ipstenu) * 🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist * [13 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-multisite-fears/#post-3192895) * > I am (far) less afraid of having to duplicate efforts to achieve this than > I am of having changes made to one site affect the others. * Very rarely happens. Themes source files are shared, but options and CSS can be per-site. * > My experiments thus far have produced three sites in three separate places: > two domains and one sub-domain, all of which are actually the same site. They > share a common dashboard and changes to one affect the other two. Logging into > any of them sends you to the main site. * What did you do to pull that off? O.O Multisite doesn’t do that at all. * Thread Starter [Spidr](https://wordpress.org/support/users/spidr/) * (@spidr) * [13 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-multisite-fears/#post-3192898) * _Very rarely happens. Themes source files are shared, but options and CSS can be per-site._ It only has to happen once for it to be too many times. I prefer inefficient and foolproof to clever with disaster potential. As discussed earlier there are also characteristics to multisite I don’t like. * _What did you do to pull that off? O.O Multisite doesn’t do that at all. _ * Since you asked: I did a backup of the entire site, using a utility from Softaculous to create a .tar.gz file in one case and a WP back up to create a .zip in the other. * I unzipped the tar.gz file into a sub domain in the main site and the zip file to install in an entirely different domain altogether. FWIW: Both on the same host. * In the case of the sub domain installation, it simply picked up the MySQL dbase from the host and used it. At first, I mistakenly thought I had made a new site and made changes which then showed up in the original site. * In the case of the new domain, the site did not display at first, nor was the Dashboard available, although trying to log into it did present an error message about the database not being correctly configured. * After considerable reconfiguring of the dbase, and wp-config.php, I managed to create a situation in which logging into this site simply transfers me to to the original site. [test.understandingcomputers.ca](http://www.test.understandingcomputers.ca) * I keep coming back to my solution, which is perhaps an old way of thinking, but it seems to me would work admirably. I want to install completely independent versions of the exact same site in the different locations and then alter them individually. * I imagine the equivalent of a static site on different servers. At the moment of installation, they would all be the same but changes to any one site would not affect the others. * Moderator [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/) * (@ipstenu) * 🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist * [13 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-multisite-fears/#post-3192899) * > I prefer inefficient and foolproof to clever with disaster potential. * We can’t give you that, even with two totally separate sites. All it takes is you editing the wrong one… Been there, done that, 😉 * > I did a backup of the entire site, using a utility from Softaculous to create > a .tar.gz file in one case and a WP back up to create a .zip in the other. * Well there’s your first problem. That’s going to do exactly what you described, and it’s not Multisite at all. If you do that, you need to go in to that DB and edit the domain name to the new one. * FYI, [creating a multisite network involves no manual edits of the DB](http://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network) * If you want, grab a copy of my pay-what-you-will ebook: [WordPress Multisite 101](http://halfelf.org/ebooks/wordpress-multisite-101/) and it can explain it in more depth 🙂 Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total) The topic ‘Disabling Multisite Fears’ is closed to new replies. * In: [Networking WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/multisite/) * 7 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/) * Last activity: [13 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-multisite-fears/#post-3192899) * Status: not resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics