Widgets go missing

I have read previous replies on the forum that relates to this question but could not find a satisfactory answer. I have a template site that I will need to copy once in a while and when I do the widgets disappear.

The problem started when we made the site in production and now we copied it back to development. I followed a very simple approach after I could not find a plug-in that could assist with moving a site from one machine to another. The steps I followed are:

I made sure my development machine is a mirror of production when it comes to set up of LAMP and all configuration in Apache 2 … only difference is the Request Header values in Apache conf file …

Using MySQL Workbench 5.2 CE I made a backup of the database into a “single transaction – self contained file” …

Using a search and replace I replaced all references in the SQL dump file from the production URL to a development URL

I then imported the “single transaction – self contained file” into MySQL on the development server using MySQL Workbench 5.2 CE, no errors.

Copy all the files from my production server from the web root folder (mostly /var/www/) to the development server, all files and folders are identical between two servers

Edit my wp-config file and make sure all connection and related setting are correct.

Log in to my development site and it works BUT my widget are gone … I have to recreate them by coping source from live site.

I use Reaction theme Version 2.0.6.1 with the following plugins:
Dynamic Widgets Version 1.5.4
Iframe Embedder Version 1.3
Nav Menu Roles Version 1.2
User Role Editor Version 3.10
WordPress HTTPS Version 3.3.6

Very simple setup … Has anyone been able to fix this widgets thing disappearing … it seems to be a common problem when copying a site or I am doing something wrong. Any input is appreciated.

Thank you, Peter.