Question Problems with multisite cloning

[carlsson]

Server operating system version

Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS

Plesk version and microupdate number

18.0.60 #1

(This may or may not be related to Plesk. However, there's a lot of brilliant people here that may be able to help me.)

I have a multisite that have given me some headache. I haven't built the solution, but provide hosting and maintenance.
Recently I updated WP to 6.5.2 from 6.4.4. After that I am not able to reach the different network sites. Ie, I can't edit the different sites. The site works good public though.

There are some plugins that I haven't updated because I'm afraid it will crash the site (the site in question is active 24/7 and last thing I did that it was down for 30 hours). Therefore I'm planning to clone the site and test things on the clone, from domain originalsite.com to clonedsite.com.

But after cloning I can't reach the site, nor login to wp-admin. I get "Error establishing a database connection" when visiting cloned site.com. When visiting clonedsite.com/wp-admin I get the same error but with more info:

Error establishing a database connection​

If your site does not display, please contact the owner of this network. If you are the owner of this network please check that your host’s database server is running properly and all tables are error free.

Could not find site clonedsite.com. Searched for table 3O3BD6J7nZ_blogs in database wp_zckvu. Is that right?

What do I do now? Read the Debugging a WordPress Network article. Some of the suggestions there may help you figure out what went wrong. If you are still stuck with this message, then check that your database contains the following tables:

• 3O3BD6J7nZ_users
• 3O3BD6J7nZ_usermeta
• 3O3BD6J7nZ_blogs
• 3O3BD6J7nZ_blogmeta
• 3O3BD6J7nZ_signups
• 3O3BD6J7nZ_site
• 3O3BD6J7nZ_sitemeta
• 3O3BD6J7nZ_registration_log

I am yet to read the propesed article, maybe someone here knows the error immediately.

I did have to relate the database to the domain, still no go.
My guess is that I still have some places where the cloning process hasn't updated the correct domain, and I guess those places are located in the database (wp-config is updated).

Any ideas where to troubleshoot this?

 

[carlsson]

Followup: I found this article, and have updated originalsite.com to clonedsite.com in 12 tables, and I still get the same error…

 

[Kaspar@Plesk]

Do the tables listed in the error actually exist in the cloned database?

 

[carlsson]

Do the tables listed in the error actually exist in the cloned database?

Yes they do.

 

[carlsson]

 

[Kaspar@Plesk]

I think that cloning a WP multisite isn't fully supported in the WP toolkit. A multisite can contain URLs belong to multiple domains. Those would get lost in the clone process, as cloning is a one to one operation. But I haven't found a definitive answer on this yet, so I might be wrong.

However that would not explain the database connection issue. So other things might be at play too. Not sure what. The Debugging a WordPress Network might be a good start.

View attachment 26162

That figures if a database connection fails

 

[carlsson]

One more thing that I just realized – I get different results if I go to www.clonedsite.com and just clonedsite.com!
With www it actually tries to log in, but fails when it tries to reach the wp panel without www…?

(btw; I'm only using private browsing to avoid any caching issues)

 

[carlsson]

Do the tables listed in the error actually exist in the cloned database?

A more comprehensive answer; In wp-config I have:


…and all tables in the database start with that.

 

[carlsson]

…and furthermore; I made some changes in the wp-config file, and now when I go to clonedsite.com I end up on originalsite.com.

This tells me there are more locations that store the original site url, and probably the reason for all this mess.

Gaaah....!

 

[Kaspar@Plesk]

Just as double check, is the right database configured in the wp-config file of the cloned site? It's difficult to say for sure off course, but the symptoms make me think that there might be a database mixup. Meaning that the cloned site might uses the database of the production site?

Are there actually two separate databases? One for the production site and a copy for the cloned site?

A more comprehensive answer; In wp-config I have:
View attachment 26163

…and all tables in the database start with that.

Is that table prefix only used on tabled in the cloned database? Or is the same prefix also being used on tables of the original database?

 

[carlsson]

I have double- and triple checked that there actually is a new database created for the cloned site, and that new database (wp_zckvu) is the one that the clonedsite.com is using. I have checked privileges as well.

I assume they use the same table names, haven't checked. It shouldn't be a problem since there are different databases, right? Just for the fun of it, how do I change table prefix on 500+ tables?

And every change I make, I check if I'm currently modifying the cloned site.