aajax

I absolutely did type the username. Not just once but over and over again using at least 3 different browsers. The website in question uses a multitude of plugins. How they interoperate is a mystery for me but without them I would not be signing into anything useful nor able to undertake any corrective action. There is no benefit to just signing into WP without the stuff that delivers the goods. The website does require administrative access in order to setup all manner of things using those plugins. In this case, it is a website that is used to display photographs and it is WP that is preventing me from taking corrective actions.

Per mbsharp, the problem arose initially on WP 6.2 but only for the instance running on PHP 8.2.12. Things work as expected/desired with the same instance running on PHP 7.34.33. I did create another instance in order to see if the WP version may have been a factor but the problem still exists.

The reason this is happening on my test systems is that I like to avoid such problems arising on my operation instance which is running on my hosting service. In that I wanted to test the upgrades before changing the operational system. However, in this case it is not the software that I have any control over which seems to be causing the problem. My hosting service does allow choosing between a few different versions of PHP but I do think that eventually I’ll need to update.

Looks like this problem was caused by being on a newer version of WordPress for which it became necessary to disable “Legacy Mode”. Looks better now.

Well now, I don’t think I’m any closer to explaining what went wrong that produced the very strange result from my original attempts that triggered this post. However, given the discussion herein I opted to go back and start over and it turned out to be quite easy to get the desired result. Keep in mind this is pretty easy to do when I have everything running on my own computers with XAMPP providing the underlying server support. Might to work in other scenarios.

A basic outline of what worked for me follows:

1. I restored the original website to its’ normal operating state on a new instance of XAMPP running on another previously uninvolved computer. On the client I have /etc/hosts set to use the IP address of the server for my original domain name.
2. On the server I then updated the Apache configuration (i.e., file named httpd-vhosts.conf) to specify the new URL as an alias (i.e., ServerAlias) for the original URL. On the client I updated /etc/hosts to also use the same IP address of the server for the new URL.
3. From the client performed a login using the old/original URL and installed the “Better Search Replace” (BSR) plugin. Ran BSR in trial mode which showed the original URL was only found in the tables named wp_options, wp_users, and wp_posts.
4. Using BSR changed all of the old URLs to the new one except those in the wp_options table.
5. Navigated to the Settings>General page and changed the Home & Site URL to the new name. Bingo! The site is now running with the new URL.
6. Transfer this new instance of the original website which is now running under a different URL to my normal/original test computer which now has 2 instances of my original website running under their own unique URL, which is the result I originally set out to achieve.

Note: I’m most grateful to bcworkz for the assistance provided in figuring out how to do this. MANY THANKS!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by aajax.

Yes bcworkz, I agree with what you say and have done all that you suggest other than trying to also use SSL.

The problem is that I have a test environment that includes everything needed to run and use WordPress on my own computers for development and testing purposes. Now I want to create a new website that starts off being an exact replica of an exiting website but that needs to be accessed by a different URL. This allows me to experiment with major changes I’m contemplating making on one website and preserve the ability to compare the revisions with the existing website. In that, access both running on the same server being accessed from the same client and browser simultaneously.

According to referenced documentation it should be pretty easy to change the URL but none of that is working in my case and the result is so bad I loose the ability to even access the website absent the trickery I mentioned. However, I’m NOT at all confident about that situation being a reliable way to test and it certainly does NOT produce something that can then be ported to a hosting service.

I suppose it is possible that WordPress has at some time in the past been able to allow the URL to be changed but that is NO longer the case. In that, the documentation has NOT kept up with the code. That is what I have to assume at present.

Thanks! I think that provides what I need to get started.

Just in case anybody else cares, I thought it might be worth including some links I found as a result of this discussion. While I have NOT yet produced anything that verifies the accuracy of the referenced material, my initial reading finds them a bit more thorough than others that I found. Consider the following:

https://www.sitepoint.com/working-with-databases-in-wordpress/ -> Provides more detail about accessing a database than any others that I found.

https://wpmudev.com/blog/handling-form-submissions/ -> Provides what looks to be a thorough explanation of form submission. This article also includes references to other material of interest as follows:

https://github.com/karannagupta/nds-admin-form-demo -> A demonstration plugin on which the article is based, which can be installed and run on a test system,

https://github.com/DevinVinson/WordPress-Plugin-Boilerplate -> A reference to the material on the WordPress site that fits my idea of code that illustrates how it is done which also conforms to recommended coding practices. The demo plugin claims to conform.

It will take me a while to work through these materials, However, I’d like to thank respondents for their help. Should I find issues with the above I’ll try and remember to update this post.

Many thanks!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by aajax.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by aajax.

Thanks, the advice regarding theme verses plugin is quite helpful.

As I said I have it working without WordPress. In that, I do know how to deal with the database using PHP. To the extent that WordPress might prefer using built-in code I would certainly opt to try and do that.

You are correct about the part I’m most at a loss for which might could be described as how a page (or post) interacts with the database. This includes queries that both fetch & update data stored in the database. In that, some kind of FORM (? terminology)) that supports fields for data entry are needed as well as replying with results. Something I’ve noticed more recently is the emphasis WordPress is placing on the so-called Block Editor. Question might be can it be used to produce interactive pages? If so how? If NOT how?