I am trying to: Get the site up and running on a new server
I visited this URL: Editing a previously created Post Field Group
I expected to see: My previously created Fields
Instead, I got: No Fields listed, all fields were missing upon site migration.
This problem has happened to me twice now. When I migrate the site to a new location the Post Field Group's loose all their fields. The strange thing is somewhere in the database the fields are still recorded because when I try to add them back into the Post Field Group I had created I get an error "Warning" field slug already used". However there is no other Field with this name listed in any of the Post Field Groups. It is like a ghost still in the database but not showing up in the Post Field Group editing window. And even stranger, I can add some of the fields back in, but not others. For example, I was able to add an image field with the same slug name and first and last name fields also with the same slugs. And when I did this all of a sudden the front-end page is showing these fields...great...but when I try to add any more fields I get the "Warning..." error.
I have tried to export Types and Views from the old site on the old server and import them into the new site and server but it doesn't do anything, I am still missing fields and these fields are still somehow recorded in the database and not in the Post Field Group editing window. I've tried deactivating Types and Views and reactivating, but this doesn't help either.
The pain is, that none of the pages work now, they are just showing blank pages, but the database is somehow still storing the information for each of these "missing" fields. I just don't know how to reattach the field data in the database with the Post Field Group, because I keep getting the "Warning" field slug already used" error. Is this something I can do from the database?
So I was able to at least restore my pages by editing the wp_options > option_value field in the database. I saw that data was missing in this field from the transfer. I am not sure what causes this.
It's great that my pages now look normal, however, the fields are still missing in the Edit Post Field Group area, and, consequently, also within the custom Post Types pages. Is there another database field I need to update to connect these fields to the backend editing pages?
It would be easier if you could tell me where the fields I need to update are located in the database, because it's taking me a long time to hunt them down.
Do you have some API manuals which talk about the database structure, outlining where you put everything.
So I think I mostly restored everything. I first had to locate and correct the wp_options > option_value field where the option_name equaled wpcf-fields. I found this by doing a database wide search for placeholder text I had in one of the fields. I then had to locate the wp_postmeta > meta_value field where the post_id equalled the id of my Post Field Group and again paste in data from my old database.
So the front of the pages look good now and the edit pages are almost perfect. There are some strange anomalies like only a few of the options showing up in a checkboxes field under the Edit Post Field Group page, however if I am editing the custom post type itself, in my case this is "person", I see all the check box options showing up...so weird.
Since this is the second time this has happened to me, it would be nice to have this issue resolved for the long run. I am only having trouble with the Post Field Groups with site transfers, everything else transfers fine.
Hi Suzanne, I'll be glad to take a look. Can you give me more information your migration process? Are you using a migration plugin, or performing a SQL dump? Are you using the Toolset Import / Export tools? Have you used Toolset Modules? Any information you can provide will help me understand where the process is breaking down.
Hi Christian, I'm not doing the migrating, but I think they use a snapshot of the current instance and bring it up on the new server. I'm sorry I don't have exact details on that. It's handled by another department.
I have tried your export/import tools a couple times, but these did not seem to help, they didn't bring over the data in these two fields for some reason.
I don't think I have used your Toolset Modules tool, what does this do?
Hmmm, I'm only able to help troubleshoot a migration problem if I know details about how the migration takes place. So I'm not sure I could get something fixed if I don't understand how it failed.
I may be able to provide you with a better migration method that you could utilize in the future to prevent this kind of error. Here's how that may work. I would take a clone of your site using the Duplicator plugin, then attempt to migrate it to a local environment to see if your fields are maintained. If the custom fields are maintained, then we would have a recommendation you can make for migration in the future. If the fields are not maintained, then we have a bug I can work to resolve for you.
Here is the Duplicator plugin for your reference:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator/
If you can give me admin access to your original site's dashboard, I can install it and create a clone for myself. If you would prefer to do this yourself, you can create the clone for me and upload it to Drive or Dropbox or another file sharing service for me to download. Either way, I will create a private reply field for you here so the information you share is not public.
We currently do not maintain documentation about how data is stored for each component. Manual database entry modification is probably not a good idea, especially if you are unfamiliar with modifying serialized data structures. This can lead to unstable and unpredictable results.
Toolset Module Manager allows you to copy the Toolset component structure of your site over to a new site. It's probably not ideal for a true site migration, but may be useful if you find yourself creating multiple similar sites. Here's some documentation about how it works:
https://toolset.com/documentation/user-guides/using-toolset-module-manager/
I understand, it's not always possible to allow access. I will enable another private reply so you can post a private link for me to download.
