How to migrate a WP Engine site to another hosting provider

02/10/24 – WordPress has temporarily lifted the block on WP Engine.

WP Engine was “one of the most trusted WordPress hosting provider’s” as claimed on their website. However recently controversy has put that statement into question.

Recently WordPress has been in an ongoing battle with WP Engine for their policies relating to the use of their WordPress software – they have been locking out vital WordPress features such as the ability to rollback and view changes to posts and pages.

The owner of WordPress felt that this practice was against WordPress ethos, and as such began a campaign to try and convince WP Engine to change their practice.

Furthermore it came to light that WP Engine fully profits from WordPress directly but does not and has not ever contributed to the WordPress project, which has angered many including the WordPress project team itself.

Unfortunately WP Engine did not change it’s practices and has not committed to helping the project as it should do, so on Wednesday 25th October 2024 WordPress decided enough is enough.

As of today WP Engine sites can no longer access plugins, nor can they access plugin or WordPress updates. WordPress has blocked all resource access to WP Engine.

This means that anyone hosting with WP Engine cannot get any updates which leaves your website vulnerable to bugs, security issues and more. Additionally if you want to expand your site with new plugins you can no longer use the built in plugin repository.

We recommend that you move your site from WP Engine to another hosting provider, so that you can install vital updates to WordPress and plugins.

Migrate WP Engine site to WebDesires

Here at WebDesires we offer great WordPress hosting services on our managed servers, we monitor servers 24/7 to minimize any issues and downtime for our clients as well as offer our expertise as web developers for any changes, bug fixes or new features you may wish to add to your website.

If you contact us via our contact form or through our live chat we would be more than happy to move your site for you to our hosting, or if you would like help moving to another hosting provider we can for a small fee help move your site to a provider of your choice!

How to migrate WP Engine to another host

The process to move your site from WP Engine has a few steps which you will need to follow, here is a step by step guide on how to move your WP Engine site:

1. In your WP Engine account, create a backup checkpoint.
2. Download the backup by clicking “download ZIP” once it is completed.
3. You will be emailed a ZIP file containing a backup of your website.
4. You will need to unpack the zip and delete the following files/directories:
   • wp-content/advanced-cache.php
   • wp-content/object-cache.php
   • wp-content/mu-plugins/mu-plugin.php
   • wp-content/mu-plugins/wpengine-common/
   • wp-content/mu-plugins/slt-force-strong-passwords.php
   • wp-content/mu-plugins/force-strong-passwords/
   • wp-content/mu-plugins/stop-long-comments.php
   • wp-content/mu-plugins/wpe-wp-sign-on-plugin/
   • wp-content/mu-plugins/wpe-wp-sign-on-plugin.php
   • wp-content/mu-plugins/wpengine-security-auditor.php
5. Upload the remaining files to your new hosting provider.
6. The database will be located in wp-content/mysql.sql – this will need to be imported into a new database using phpMyAdmin or similar on your new hosting provider.
7. replace the wp-config.php with the default WordPress wp-config.php file, at this point you will need to change the config variables to match your MySQL settings and login information.

You may need to search through your database if needed to change any urls to your new domain if this has changed.

Author: Dean WilliamsProfessional PHP Web Developer with expertise in OpenCart Web Development, WordPress Web Development, Bespoke Systems - also a seasoned Linux Server Administrator.

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