How to Copy WordPress Site to Local Test Server

Thanks Sunny, and that is the first half of it, but I had to modify the C:\wamp\apps\phpmyadmin3.4.5\config.inc.php file for the following parameters:

$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘password’] = ‘yourpassword’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘AllowNoPassword’] = false;

But even after doing that, the WAMPSERVER phpMyAdmin still won’t let me in. But fortunately, if I type “http://localhost:81/phpMyAdmin” in Firefox, that lets me in.

Well, at least in Wamp it lets me create a unique folder structure for my WordPress site, but it still displays the site in “static-html” mode – it does not look like the production WordPress site. The basic functionality is there, but it looks quite different. To reiterate, it has a folder structure of “C:\wamp\www\newwordpresssite\wp-content\plugins\really-static\static” that contains index.html files that are the ones displayed for all the pages. I presume that these display instead of the index.php files. Obviously, something somewhere is triggering or toggling this alternate display mode.

I went to “install” wordpress-3.3.1, and was surprised (or perhaps not so surprised) that all it did was create a WordPress folder structure – it’s not an actual install at all. Yet I had asked someone on the forum if it needed to be installed prior to my unzipping the exported site, and someone told me “yes”. So the lack of a true WordPress installation wouldn’t account for the site displaying in “static-html” mode.

Yes, I’m using the full site that I’ve unzipped into the C:\wamp\www\newwordpresssite folder. I did stop the IIS services, but keep in mind that I installed Wamp to user localhost:81, and I changed the configuration files to reflect that, and that seems to work. I had rebooted my PC, and now I can run phpMyAdmin from the Wamp menu group. The WordPress database “newwordpresssitedb” I had created before is still there. The tables have names such as newwordpresssitedb_options, and the columns reflect the URL change in the 3 SQL queries I ran before. This is the first query:

UPDATE newwordpressite_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, ‘http://currentsite.com/newwordpresssite’, ‘http://localhost:81/newwordpresssite’) WHERE option_name = ‘home’ OR option_name = ‘siteurl’;

Could the problem be that phpMyAdmin is not asking for a login, so it isn’t clear what user is creating the database, loading it, and changing it, and if that user matches the one in the wp-config.php file? wp-config.php:

// ** MySQL settings – You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘newwordpresssitedb’);

/** MySQL database username */
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘root’);

/** MySQL database password */
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘wp123456’);

/** MySQL hostname */
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);

One question I have is the “MySQL hostname” above. I assume it should not be “localhost:81”, since it is referring to the MySQL server and not the web server.

I think I might have run this in the MySQL console:

UPDATE mysql.user
->SET Password=PASSWORD(“wp123456”)
->WHERE User=”root”;
mysql>FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

And I also made this change:
C:\wamp\apps\phpmyadmin3.4.5\config.inc.php:
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘password’] = ‘wp123456’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘AllowNoPassword’] = false;

Is there any way to tell if the WordPress site is able to login to the newwordpresssitedb database? Or to simplify the login so it is more likely to work?

Hold off on this issue – I’ve compared the pages of the production on-line site and the one I’m displaying from the zip file, and I have found slight differences in wording. So what I could be looking at is an old version of the WordPress site – though I had brought this to the attention of the site administrator weeks ago with full screen shots, he says the zip reflects the current site.

In addition, there is a folder that seems to contain the “static-html” pages:

C:\wamp\www\newwordpressite\wp-content\plugins\really-static

Well, I deleted this entire folder, and it didn’t affect the way the site looks!

Well, I do need to know how to disable the plugin. I’ve found all sorts of vague references to doing that, but no specific instructions. Also, I’m puzzled about something – how can the Really-Static plugin be enabled if I can delete the …\plugins\really-static folder structure and have the WordPress site run the same, without an error? And if it’s not enabled, why do I have to concern myself with deleting it?

I’ll go ahead and post the results of your suggested tests above in trying to determine if the WordPress site can connect to the database:

Sunny, I know you suggest that the reason this WordPress site is running in “static-html” mode is because, “3. There is no alternative mode being triggered it is just because wordpress is not setup properly and as there is no database connection that is why it is displaying the file/folder structure in your site.”

But I tried a little test – I modified the wp-config.php and put in an invalid database password. If the site is displaying in static-html because it can’t log in to the database, then that would not have any effect – it would look the same. But when I did that, the site gives a “the website cannot display the page” error.

I decided to create a new database in phpMyAdmin (wpdb) and I remembered that before I had used utf8_unicode_ci, and so I made sure it said utf8_general_ci. I also had specified MYSQL323 in the “Format-specific options”, and this time I left it as “None”. I also used the “Privileges” tab in phpMyAdmin to setup a new user with an auto-generated password.

I followed your suggested tests above, deleting the wp-config.php, and want to comment that of course changing “Database Host” to “localhost:81” is not going to work, because only the web server is set to “localhost:81” – the database is at “localhost”. So, if I change the database server to “localhost:81”, with or without a password, it does nothing, trying to run “localhost” in the browser tab above.

If I leave the Datbase Host at “localhost”, and either blank out the password or put in a wrong one, I get:

“Error establishing a database connection

This either means that the username and password information in your wp-config.php file is incorrect or we can’t contact the database server

at localhost. This could mean your host’s database server is down.
•Are you sure you have the correct username and password?
•Are you sure that you have typed the correct hostname?
•Are you sure that the database server is running?”

And if I use an old database with an old user, I get:

Can’t select database

We were able to connect to the database server (which means your username and password is okay) but not able to select the newwordpressitedb

database.
•Are you sure it exists?
•Does the user pauser have permission to use the newwordpresssitedb database?
•On some systems the name of your database is prefixed with your username, so it would be like username_newwordpresssitedb. Could that be the problem?”

However if I use either an old database, new user and new auto-generated password or a new database, new user and new auto-generated password, I get this:

“All right sparky! You’ve made it through this part of the installation. WordPress can now communicate with your database. If you are ready, time now to…Run the Install”

When I click the Run the Install button, it then it tells me WordPress is already installed: “Already Installed

You appear to have already installed WordPress. To reinstall please clear your old database tables first.

Log In”

But the fact is, the site still displays different than the production one on the web, which, as I mention above, causes me to question whether I was given the current version of the site.