Thread

I’m trying to upgrade from 2.1.3 to the latest version of EE and want to test it locally before upgrading on the live server, but I’ve never had a local copy of the site. What’s the best way make a copy for testing in a local environment (MAMP)? I’m having trouble wrapping my head around what to do. This is what I thought would do the trick, but hasn’t:

1. Download the entire site so there is a local copy to run in MAMP
2. Export database from live site
3. Create local database with the same name
4. Import database from live site
5. Check/update EE files that were downloaded for correct permissions where necessary
6. Update config.php to point to local database and use local user/pass, paths, etc.

That’s kind of where I got to. When I tried to navigate to the index page of the system folder, I got a completely blank page with no rendered source code. Same thing for the site’s root index page.

After that didn’t seem to work, I tried something new. I thought that maybe downloading the latest version of EE and just doing a fresh install would be simpler, and I’d hoped there was a way to simply import the database and maybe overwrite some files would work, but that’s sort of where I’m stuck in my thinking. I thought I’d post here to find out the best practice for doing something like this.

* One other thing: I notice that there is a new admin.php file in the root of the latest version of EE. I see that in 2.1.3. Is that new or have I been missing that file from my live server the whole time I’ve had it up? (it seems to run fine)

I recently just moved my LIVE site to my local WAMP, also for development/testing.
So I just went through what you’re going through 😊
Don’t worry, it’s really quite easy.

I followed this wiki post: http://expressionengine.com/wiki/Moving_from_Development_Server_to_Live_Server

I will be doing lots of developing on both sites (live and offline), so here is what I did:
I made 2 copies of “\system\expressionengine\config\database.php”
I renamed one: database.dev.php
the other one: database.live.php

So when I’m working on the DEVelopent offline version, I copy the contents of database.dev.php into database.php
And viceversa for the LIVE version.

Good luck!
😊

I see that the link you included is for EE 1. Does the same process apply for EE 2?

Also, does anyone know about the answer to this?:

* One other thing: I notice that there is a new admin.php file in the root of the latest version of EE. I see that in 2.1.3. Is that new or have I been missing that file from my live server the whole time I’ve had it up? (it seems to run fine)

Hi, socialjoe.

You wouldn’t have had an admin.php in the root directory of your 2.1.3 install.

I’d unzip the files from the latest version of EE into my MAMP folder, create a new database, and import my database from the 2.1.3 version.

Don’t forget to copy over your config.php and database.php files from your 2.1.3 version, your third_party folder, any additional theme folders, and the image folders you’d need.

Then visit your new MAMP site via admin.php. You should be prompted to upgrade to 2.3.1