porting site to host causes loss of fields n blcks

Hi everyone,

I am workin on hosting my site on godaddy.. i moved the files and the db there.. thereafter did the install.. however, now what happened is, the install created multiple tables.. say for example, the table profiles was already there, and it created Profiles.. which a capital P.. it did this for many tables but not all.. so as a result, i lost the users that i had created in my dev environment.. which is still alright, but i also lost the configurations that i made.. the modifications and to the profile, account and other pages.. new profile fields that i made etc.. basically all the development effort related to db stored configs such as fields, page blocks etc.. I have checked in detail, but i think the configs should be in the tables, but after the install, Dolphin made new tables with capital initialed names and used them instead.. I dropped the db after few checks.. any guidance? Is it important to go through the fresh install? or can i just change a few configs? It also makes sense, since, i already have the site running on my laptop.. it should just be just config changes.. or is there a different kind of install procedure that might help?

Thanks a lot in advance!

Abhishek

Moving to a new host should not be difficult; I moved from a VPS from one provider to a dedicated with another provider.  First of all, you want to backup the Dolphin site files to a zip archive; the zip archive is going to make it easier to recreate the site.  Don't create the zip with a root directory.  You can also do a direct server to server transfer; which is how I moved my site, but that means you need root access to the server.  If you are moving from a cPanel install to a cPanel install, I believe you can do a backup in the cPanel.  However, personally I would just do a site backup.

You also do a full export of your database.

Now, once you have your GoDaddy account ready for use, you will upload the zip archive to where you wish your website to reside.  GoDaddy will have a web root that may be different than the web root from your old host.  Let's say that GoDaddy web root is /public_html, if you want your site to be in the web root; and it does not have to be but most running one site will just place the site in the web root, then upload the zip archive to the web root of /html.  Once the zip has uploaded, and it may take a while if you have a lot of files stored, then go to the file manager in cPanel; it will probably ask where you want to go to, choose web root.  Click on the zip archive and then use the extract, or expand, button on the file manager.  Your website will be extracted to the directory.  You can then delete the uploaded zip archive.

Now, you need to create a new database.  Now, GoDaddy may have some restrictions in place on naming protocol; therefore, you may not be able to give the same name.  Don't worry as you adjust this in the header include file.  Once you have set up a database with a user and user password, go to phpMyAdmin and see if you can import the database export you created.  If you get an error because the import file is too large, then you can use a simple php script to import the database file to the new database.  I have had to do this on some servers when using phpMyAdmin and did not have access to the server.  Others on here may have another solution; I can provide the php file to run if need be.

Once you have the files in place and the database in place, you need to edit the header include file; header.inc.php in /inc

You will need to change the database information as well as the directory root.

find $dir['root'] and update it to point to your new directory root; you can get this from your control panel.

Also, $db['host']  $db['user'] $db['passwd'] db['db'] need to be updated to the GoDaddy database credentials.

If GoDaddy is going to be handling the DNS servers, then they can adjust the DNS to point to your new site.

Just for clarification, you don't do an install and you don't let Dolphin create tables.  You will be importing the tables when you import the sql file.

One thing i should mention that geek_girl did not mention. Most likely because she does not know.

You appear to have used a local windows machine to setup your site originally. Some lamp setups for windows save database tables in lowercase. This is fine for a windows machine, but not a Linux host. Linux hosts are case sensitive.

So to fix your other problem. After you import your database you will have to rename some of the tables to convert them to proper case. Table names that contain capitol letters are the following.

Profiles
RayBoardCurrentUsers
RayBoardBoards
RayBoardUsers
RayChatCurrentUsers
RayChatMessages
RayChatProfiles
RayChatRooms
RayChatRoomsUsers
RayImContacts
RayImMessages
RayImPendings
RayImProfiles
RayMp3Files
RayMp3Tokens
RayShoutboxMessages
RayVideoFiles
RayVideoTokens
RayVideo_commentsFiles
RayVideo_commentsTokens

One other thing i should mention. You should search these forums for GoDaddy.

GoDaddy is one of the worst choices to host dolphin on. You most likely will have problems. Many other people have had nothing but problems with them.

No, I did not know that but I do now. Will file this away for possible use in the future.

Do you mean that you moved the site over, and then re-ran the installer on the database?  This is not how Dolphin is moved.  All you need to do is move the site files and make sure there is a database connection (and the database contents are loaded from a backup).

You may need to edit /inc/header.inc.php to edit the domain, path, and/or database information - if so, clear your cache for the changes to take full effect.  If the above is true, it may be best to wipe the attempt and start over with a backup, this time noting what everyone here has said.  You can also shoot me a PM if you need some help with the move.

hey.. thanks for the help.. and sorry for the late response.. have been swayed away for reasons.. yes Deano that was the problem.. realized it few moments after posting the query.. Thanks geek_girl.. ur response will be a good reference in future as well..

Deano, so which hosts wud be better suited to dolphin needs? Currently a problem i am facing is, that most of the mail service providers (gmail, yahoo, msn etc) put the mails sent by my hosted site to the spam folder of the receiving user. This happens only when i use automatic mailer of my godaddy hosted site. But when i send a mail manually from my site's godaddy mail box, it goes to the inbox of the receiving user, as expected. Any idea how to resolve this?

Abhishek