Issue Cloning a Wordpress website doesn't purge data prior to copying over data

[doncullen]

I was under the impression that cloning a wordpress website would have it purge data at the destination as to make it identical to the original with the only difference being the configuration to make it run at the new location. So imagine my surprise when I used clone for the first time to copy WP from one location to another, with that destination having a pre-existing copy of WP, I found out it doesn't purge first. I know this because after the clone was completed, I logged in WP-Admin and went to plugins to verify everything was active, I saw all of the old plugins from the old website. As a result, the clone exihbited a lot of problems stemming from old configurations from the old website.

In the end, I had to use Duplicator to copy the new website over the original. Duplicator behaved as expected; it purged everything prior to copying everything over.

How can I have Plesk purge a website prior to cloning? What's the best method?

I'm asking here because we regularly develop on a dev subdomain and when it's done and is ready to be deployed, we usually clone it over to the production domain. For now, we'll fall back to using Duplicator as it does the job better than Plesk, but I'm hoping there's a way I can do it all in Plesk.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Bitpalast]

Data is overwritten, existing files that are not overwritten might be preserved. Similar behavior occurs when using pmm (migrator, backup restore) and when "removing" a Wordpress site (where some files still remain in the directory after removal. I am not sure whether this is a bug or a feature. Normally here, when we clone websites, we first clear the target of any unwanted files. It is a very simply, fast action that can easily be done for example with "File Manager" from the web space control panel. So it should not create too much of a burden on a user to add this step before cloning.

It would be nice if Plesk added an option to the cloning feature where all existing files in the target will be purged before the clone is created, though. But maybe there was a reason why developers did not do that, that we don't see at this time.

 

[IgorG]

It would be nice if Plesk added an option to the cloning feature where all existing files in the target will be purged before the clone is created, though. But maybe there was a reason why developers did not do that, that we don't see at this time.

Actually, purging data - is quite a destructive thing. Probably, we can do it with a big red mark regarding the possibility to lose the data. Anyway, we consider this as a possible improvement.

 

[doncullen]

It can be added as an option and by default not selected. For instance:

[ ] Purge data at destination before cloning origin to destination.
* Warning: all data will be removed from destination if selected. Backing up destination is recommended before purging. You can do this at [link to backup page].

This would enable clean cloning and make it clear to people that it's quite destructive and should back up data prior to using purge with cloning in order to be able to recover if they realize they needed data from prior to purge.