May be your currently hosting company provide services is slow or unreliable, or their service has only provide limited service. So now you want to migrate your shop to a new hosting company and every thing remain unchanged.
Well the good news is we’ve taken the time to write up a complete step by step guide on how to move OpenCart to a new server that even a web ‘newbie’ can follow. Simply follow the guide below and you’ll be leaving your old hosting company with ease.
Step 1:
(if you want to upload your website by ftp software (Filezilla..etc), then you may skip step 1, and use your ftp software to download your whole website files to your computer.)
1. Go to your currently(old) hosting control panel (cpanel), go to File Manager.
2. Go to your shop’s website location.
3. Highlight all your shop’s file
4. Compress the file and save it. Remember where you save the zip file. You will need it later.
Step 2:
1. Keep stay at your old control panel, Go to database section and click to phpMyAdmin this time.
2-1. Found out your shop database and highlight it.
2-2. Click to export the file
3. Click to “custom”, click to “Select all”, select “zipped” and save. Remember where the file you save.
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Now you have a copy of your website, we need to upload it and restore it on your new hosting/server. If you have purchased hosting with us then you can follow this guide exactly. If you’re using another company for hosting, you will need to contact them for details on how to connect to your hosting via FTP and how to setup/connect to your database.
Open up FileZilla and connect to your new hosting company. AD Region customers check your welcome e-mail for your FTP details. As your domain is still technically loading up your old hosting company at this stage, you will need to use the host’s IP address instead of ftp.yourdomain to connect.
Step 3 (If you use Ftp software to upload your website, please follow step 3):
1. Locate your website file from your computer.
2. Locate your new website through ftp software and highlight your new website
3. you will see the index.xhtml on the new website space. Delete the files and the upload your website files to your new website space.
Step 4 (If you don’t use Ftp software to upload your website, please follow step 4):
If you are hosting with AD Region, you can follow the step one by one.
1. If you don’t have any upload software, you may also go to your new hosting’s control panel (cpanel) , >> File Manager, locate your new website and highlight it >>
you will see the index.xhtml on the new website space. Delete the file and click to “upload new files”.
2. Choose the file which you want to upload(the file which is compress all the old shop file on Step1), click on “Extract archives automatically” and then click upload.
In this stage, it may takes a little long time to upload.
Step 5:
In this moment, you have already upload your whole old shop to your new shop’s hosting location. Now we are going to restore the old shop’s database.
If you are hosting with AD Region, you can follow the step one by one.
1. Go to your new hosting company’s control panel >> Databases section >> MySQL Database >> click to “Create a New Database”
2. Give Database Name and password and click “add MySQL” button. Some control panel’s database setting may also need to set database user. If your hosting need database user, then you should create a database user for your shop’s database. If you are using AD Region hosting, you won’t need to create database user because In AD Region hosting, database user and database name are the same.
Step 6:
If you are hosting with AD Region, you can follow the step one by one.
1. After you have create database, You will see your new shop’s database shows at your control panel’s Database section. If you are hosting at AD Region Company, please click the “phpMyAdmin” icon which belong to your new shop’s database to go to phpMyadmin section.
2. When you login to phpMyAdmin section, you will see your new shop database in your left hand side, please highlight your new shop database, and click to “import”
3. click “choose file”, 的upload the file which you have just save in step 2 (database file)
if you have upload the database successfully, you will get successful message.
Step 7:
We now need to update your config.php and admin/config.php files to have the correct settings. You can either do this via FileZilla (FTP)or will your control panel’s file manager, If you do upload them, make sure they go in the correct location.
1. Please open your config.php file and update the information as below:
If you are hosting with AD Region, you can follow the step one by one.
This is config.php file.
please modify “your_domain” to your currently domain name. Please change “Your_database”, “Your_database_user” & “Your_database_password” to your new database information. if you are hosting with AD Region company, then your database & database user information is the same.
This is admin/config.php file. Please change “Your_database”, “Your_database_user” & “Your_database_password” to your new database information. if you are hosting with AD Region company, then your database & database user information is the same.
2. please upload these 2 config.php files to your new website. please make sure you are upload to the right location.
Step 8:
At this stage, we suggest you update your domain’s name servers to your new hosting company. To do this, contact your registrar (the company you purchase your domain with) and ask them to update your name servers to your new hosting company’s (AD Region Hosting name servers are ns1.adregion.net and ns2.adregion.net) This can take up to 48 hours to complete.
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OpenCart Migration FAQ
Q1. OpenCart isn’t sending any confirmation order emails out.
This can often happen when changing hosts. This is usually down to the e-mail settings you have.
Make sure the e-mail address your OpenCart sends e-mails from is created on your new host. Some hosts won’t allow mail to be sent via an e-mail address which does not end in the domain name of the site. e.g. if your site is www.mystore.co.uk then the e-mail must end in @mystore.co.uk
Go to your control panel to set a new email with your new website and hosting.
If you are hosting with AD Region, you can follow the step one by one.
1. If you are hosting with AD Region, please go to Control panel >> Email >>Email Accounts >> create a New Email Account.
2. Choose your new domain, made the password and then save. Remember your password.
3. Go to Advance >> ModSecurity >> choose your shop domain >> change the modsecuirty status to “detect mode”
If the mail box is set up, you may have the incorrect settings in your OpenCart. Log into your shop’s admin and move over ‘system’, click settings then click the mail tab. Try changing your mail protocol to Mail if it’s on SMTP. if you are hosting with AD Region, the Smtp host name should be: mail.adregion.net, and Smtp port will be: 25
Q2. Opencart give 404 error when go to category or product or information page.
If your old shop is using “Use SEO URLs”. Then you should remember to upload .htaccess file to your new website.
Q3. If your shop have download products, then you should also set the your shop’s new ftp information.
If you are hosting with AD Region, you can follow the step one by one.
1. Go to your website’s control panel (cpanel) >> Files >> ftp accounts >> Create a new ftp account.
2. Write down the username your like and choose your shop domain << This will become your ftp username.
for example: your username is “info”, shop’s domain is “testing.com”, then your ftp’s Username will be info_testing.com
3. Set a password and click to “add an FTP account” button.
4. path: /www/your_domain (for example: /www/testing.com)
Go back to your shop’s admin >> setting >> ftp tab >> and change as below:
1. ftp host: your domain , for example: testing.com
2. ftp port: 21
3. ftp username: for example: info_testing.com
4. ftp root: /
5. enable ftp: yes.
