I have the following problem. I export a WordPress site and import it to another new WordPress installation. I export demo-content.xml, widgets.ie and customizer.dat and package the theme in .zip. I use TGM Plugin Activation for the theme, including several mandatory plugins. Two of them are Site Origin and One Click Demo Import. In the new site after importing the demo data, everything is fine, except for the blocks of Site Origin. The following symbols appear: “u003Cp style=u0022text-align: center” etc.
If I delete the blocks and rebuild them, everything works, but if I have a lot of them it becomes complicated. Something goes wrong when exporting or importing. I tried to increase all the settings of the both hostings, but again it didn’t work. I know you advise Duplicator, but I prefer this method and looking for a way to do it. I do not have any errors in the console or in debug.log. If anyone has encountered such a problem I would be very grateful for the help.
Hi, thanks for reaching out.
It sounds like Page Builder serialization is being broken. Does the issue persist if you try the following:
– On the base site, export demo-content.xml, widgets.ie and customizer.dat.
– On the destination site, manually import the above three files from Tools > One Click Demo Import > Manual Demo File Import >
— Import Content
— Import Widgets
— Import Customizer
Put another way, if you don’t ZIP the individual files and manually import them, does the issue persist?
Hello,
I tried it, but unfortunately it’s the same again.
I will use Duplicator for now, but I want to ask you is there a way to fix this issue soon?
Thanks in advance.
Greetings
Thanks for trying. I’m not sure what the issue is. You can try the import files for the Corp demo and see if the issue persists.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jsuo9ocqi2znz2o/AABOs29aHKLpv385FA80JtY8a?dl=0
Works great with your theme. The serialization doesn’t look broken. So looking for the problem in hosting maybe?
Thanks a lot for the help.
Greetings
Thanks for testing. I’ll chat with Alex here at SiteOrigin and get back to you.
Hi,
This type of error on the hosting side of things is generally as a result of table character set and/or collation being set to something that doesn’t support one of the characters being used. I recommend checking your database to ensure and ensuring it’s set to utf8. For more information on this (and instructions on how to proceed), please refer to this Codex entry.
Kind regards,
Alex
Hello again, I talked to the programmer who did the theme. He wrote me this – “these are some styles that are broken during import and the browser prints them because it can’t recognize them. Usually such components keep the HTML in it in serialized form. – convert , -, etc. characters in their ASCII or Unicode characters for more security. Something went wrong with these symbols when exporting or importing. ”
He gave me an example with a specific SiteOrigin block – “u003cp style = u0022text-align: center; u0022u003eSingleu003c / pu003enu003cp style = u0022text-align: center; u0022u003e90 x 190 cmu003c / pu003en” in admin is this “Single>90×190”. The point is that I looked at the specific block and I don’t see any problem with it, I use the Layout Builder widget and inside it a SiteOrigin icon and a SiteOrigin editor widget with visual and text editor.
Should I use a Layout builder with Custom html block inside for example or only Custom html without Layout Builder? Will it break again? Or some other solution if you have one? I really want this import to work. Thank you for your quick response.
Greetings
There shouldn’t be an issue using a Custom HTML Widget inside a Layout Builder Widget if that’s the design you’d like to set up. Please, send us the JSON file of the layout and we’ll take a look. You can upload files to WeTransfer.com or any online hosted location and send us the link. The JSON file can be downloaded from within Page Builder by going to LayoutsImport/ExportDownload Layout.
Here is a link from Wetransfer – https://we.tl/t-G5HzODSaDl – with the JSON file of the broken layout. Do you want the layout from which I export?
Hi,
I’ve had a look at the provided layout and the issue appears directly in the export itself. Would it be possible for you to link me to the page this export is from so I can inspect the resulting page?
That would be great. Please upload that layout to WeTransfer.com also – you may need to save it as a text file first.
Kind regards,
Alex
Here are Wetransfer with both JSON files saved as txt – home-broken.txt and home-working.txt – https://we.tl/t-ZLlz39i9k1
Hi,
Thanks. To confirm, the broken layout occurs after importing the layout to the other site, correct?
I’ve seen this type of encoding issue before and it was as a result of a plugin incorrectly filtering the data and re-encoding the data incorrectly. That could happen during the import. Does this issue occur if you import the plugin with solely our plugins installed? This test is to confirm if another plugin is related to the issue you’re facing rather.
Kind regards,
Alex
Hi,
I tried to import the demo only with Page Builder by SiteOrigin, SiteOrigin Widgets Bundle and One Click Demo Import to import the theme. The serialization is still broken.
Can you think of anything else I can try to make this import work? Thanks a lot for the help.
Hi,
This issue is occurring during the export so how you import the data won’t directly help – it’s already too late at that point to “save” the data.
Please run a plugin conflict test during the export (not the import) to see if that helps. There have been instances where plugins have incorrectly filtered data and it’s resulting in this type of issue so ensuring a baseline of only our plugins and a default theme is an important test to run.
Kind regards,
Alex
Hi,
Yes of course when exporting, sorry. I tested and still get the serialization error. I’ll try changing the way the blocks are made. I have something in mind, I will do tests and write to you. Thanks a lot
Hi,
Thanks for checking. Can you please outline your export process? This should hopefully provide some insight into what’s going on and highlight potential points of failure.
Let me know how you go with your tests.
Kind regards,
Alex