After just changing my URL / domain, now the forms have disappeared ... When I go into my Admin panel I see the names of all the forms, but when I click to access/edit, it's empty, says form can't be located. Is there a way I can retrieve my forms? Spent lots of time on them! thanks :) jessa
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Help-forms have disappeared after changing URL / domain name
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Hey Jessa, have you tried the Meta Recovery Tool yet?
Posted 12 years ago on Saturday January 14, 2012 | Permalink -
jessalouisa
MemberOK, thanks...A little instruction would help ... I have zip file with a blank change_log.txt doc and a fixmeta.php file, and no idea how to use this to recover the tables...Do you have a doc or page or anything on how to use this? Thanks for your help! jessa
Posted 12 years ago on Saturday January 14, 2012 | Permalink -
Install the zip file as a plugin and activate that plugin. It will add a Meta Recovery menu item to the Forms navigation. Go there, and then use it to try and fix each of your forms.
Posted 12 years ago on Saturday January 14, 2012 | Permalink -
jessalouisa
MemberOK this does not work for my forms .... for 4 out of 5, I Click the Form and "submit" and it says "This form's meta could not be recovered" ... So, what I did with my tables was go into Cpanel and search for the string of what the tables were named, and then replace it back to the old URL name where appropriate ... Is there a similar solution here? If so, what do I search for, and where? Or if not that, any other options for recovering my forms? Thanks again
Posted 12 years ago on Tuesday January 17, 2012 | Permalink -
Hi Jessa. The problem when you change domain names on a WordPress site, even with a search and replace, is that the length of the values changes, and WordPress stores the length along with the actual string. For example, if you changed your name from example.com to supersite.com, the length of the string changes from 11 characters to 13 characters. You can do a search and replace on the string to change that, but when you do, you are not changing that stored length. That's where the problem starts.
Because you have already migrated your site, and the meta recovery tool has not worked, there might not be any help we can provide in a forum other than to ask you to recreate the forms. If your forms required a substantial amount of work and it's worth paying someone to recover them, so you don't need to recreate them, you can find help with that here.
Here is some advanced troubleshooting advice, and what I use when I migrate sites from one domain or server to another. After you have properly changed the site URL and imported the database to the new server, I use this tool to change the domain name strings in the database and also change the serialized value lengths at the same time. This is an advanced tool which has the ability to destroy your database and your website. Please don't use it if you're not comfortable with it, and also please be sure you have at least one backup of your original database, and that you do not work with that. Save that somewhere safe, make a copy of it, then work with the copy.
This is the tool:
http://interconnectit.com/124/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/Please be sure you have a backup of your database before you attempt to use this. You have to weigh the possibility of destroying your database and the work required to recreate that, vs. doing to work to recreate your forms.
Please let us know if you have any questions if you would like to attempt this.
Posted 12 years ago on Wednesday January 18, 2012 | Permalink -
jessalouisa
MemberOK When my forms did not appear (WP forms plugin) I was able to have them reappear by going into CPanel and searching for the name of the form, reverting it back to previous .... That will not work here? I do not want to mess with the tool you mentioned, I'd rather recreate, only if there's no easier way to recover... Thanks again
Posted 12 years ago on Friday January 20, 2012 | Permalink -
I don't think that will work here. It has to do with the way the data is stored in the database. If you're not comfortable using the InterconnectIT tool, I would recommend recreating the forms. I'm sorry we can't perform the database work for you.
Posted 12 years ago on Friday January 20, 2012 | Permalink
