Starting over with BH and Wordpress

[Sombeech]

Hello. My employer's current website hasn't been touched in 4 years. We just started with Bluehost yesterday, and I basically want to start over from scratch with a Wordpress template.

So I've got my temp url, and I've gone through the Wordpress setup in the cPanel.

My temp url isn't displaying the page though. Even though I don't have anything there, I'd at least expect the beginning Wordpress Template. "The page cannot be found". I've checked via an FTP client, and the default Wordpress files are on my site.

I did the database tweak where I pointed the url to my temp address, but maybe I'm doing it wrong?

[owencutajar]

Can you see if you get a response from:

http://<your temp URL>/index.php

if you don't have any default files (don't know what they are called in BH speak) set up, you'll get a 404.

What's the URL you're looking at ?

Regards

Owen

[Sombeech]

Can you see if you get a response from:

http://<your temp URL>/index.php

if you don't have any default files (don't know what they are called in BH speak) set up, you'll get a 404.

What's the URL you're looking at ?

Regards

Owen

Nope, no response. Here is my temp url. http://69.89.31.239/~gwsupply/

One more possibility is I've got duplicating Wordpress files. I've got them in my www folder as well as my public_html folder. Should I remove them from one of these locations?

Also, I'm starting from scratch, so I don't mind starting with a completely blank template. If it won't screw anything up, I could remove ALL traces of wordpress, and just start over with the wizard?

[Early Out]

One more possibility is I've got duplicating Wordpress files. I've got them in my www folder as well as my public_html folder. Should I remove them from one of these locations?NO! Those are not duplicates - the files in www are just a mirror of those in public_html. If you remove them from either location, they'll be removed from both. In other words, the files in www are just pointers to the ones in public_html.

[Sombeech]

NO! Those are not duplicates - the files in www are just a mirror of those in public_html. If you remove them from either location, they'll be removed from both. In other words, the files in www are just pointers to the ones in public_html.

Ah, good to know... but on the other hand, if I just cleared everything out, I'm not really losing anything because nothing's been edited really. Could I just delete those contents and just start over from scratch?

[Early Out]

This all rings a bell with me, something to the effect that you can't use Wordpress (and other applications) with a temporary URL. I may just be mis-remembering this, but I believe you'll find that everything works OK if you point your PC to a DNS server that's already been updated for your domain (try OpenDNS (http://www.opendns.com)).

[Sombeech]

This all rings a bell with me, something to the effect that you can't use Wordpress (and other applications) with a temporary URL. I may just be mis-remembering this, but I believe you'll find that everything works OK if you point your PC to a DNS server that's already been updated for your domain (try OpenDNS (http://www.opendns.com)).

I saw something like this the other day, but it seemed like you could tweak the database to point to the temp url, rather than the final product, for the time being... unless that had nothing to do with wordpress at all ?

[owencutajar]

Just looked at the URL u've supplied and I'm getting a 404 returned from an IIS server:

Response Headers
Server Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:03:18 GMT
Connection close
Content-Length 4040
Content-Type text/html

BH don't run Windows boxes as far as I'm aware.

How *did* you set up the "temporary URL" ?

Owen


p.s. I <3 Firebug

[Sombeech]

Just looked at the URL u've supplied and I'm getting a 404 returned from an IIS server:

Response Headers
Server Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:03:18 GMT
Connection close
Content-Length 4040
Content-Type text/html

BH don't run Windows boxes as far as I'm aware.

How *did* you set up the "temporary URL" ?

Owen


p.s. I <3 Firebug

The temp url was just in the confirmation email at registration.

Also, the old hosting site uses a windows server. This is one reason I wanted to switch. We still haven't cancelled the service though, but I thought this temp url would give us a preview of what it will look like when we make the switch.

[Sombeech]

So, what would happen if I just deleted the sub folders from public_html and www?

Could I just run through the wordpress wizard on BH again? Or will it create a conflict in my account since I've already run it?

[owencutajar]

The problem seems to be that wordpress thinks the blog URL is http://www.gwsupply.com/~gwsupply. So as soon as you go to the URL you supplied, you get an HTTP redirect to the URL above and end up on your old server.

Here's one thing to try: .. change the HOSTS file on your computer to map www.gwsupply.com to the new IP address and see if you can get to the website then.

Regards

Owen

[Sombeech]

Here's one thing to try: .. change the HOSTS file on your computer to map www.gwsupply.com to the new IP address and see if you can get to the website then.

Regards

Owen

Can you remind me how to do that again? Thanks.

[owencutajar]

Go to Windows\system32\drivers\etc and find a file called "hosts"
Add a line that reads: 69.89.31.239 www.gwsupply.com
Save the file
Open a command prompt and run: IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS
Point your browser at: http://www.gwsupply.com/

p.s. .. I'm seeing your WordPress installation after having done this ;)

Basically you're telling your computer to use the IP address for your BH host when it looks at that domain. This lets you set up the site without publishing it to the world. Once it's up and running as you want it, changing the A record on your DNS host will effectively do the same thing for the whole world.

Regards

Owen

[Sombeech]

Go to Windows\system32\drivers\etc and find a file called "hosts"
Add a line that reads: 69.89.31.239 www.gwsupply.com
Save the file
Open a command prompt and run: IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS
Point your browser at: http://www.gwsupply.com/

Hey! I think we're getting somewhere. :) Thanks man.

[owencutajar]

Not a problem mate .. if you don't mind I'll document your issue on http://askowen.info (and link to your blog of course)

Owen

[owencutajar]

Post here: http://askowen.info/index.php/2008/06/how-can-i-access-my-new-website-before-changing-my-nameservers/

Let me know if the link is ok. Also, let us know if you managed to the solution actually worked for you.

Regards

Owen

[Sombeech]

Post here: http://askowen.info/index.php/2008/06/how-can-i-access-my-new-website-before-changing-my-nameservers/

Let me know if the link is ok. Also, let us know if you managed to the solution actually worked for you.

Regards

Owen

It's all working out great now! Thanks a lot.

By Monday I'll be ready to go live with bluehost and cancel my old host, and dump this temp url. Thanks again.

[owencutajar]

Excellent mate.

On a side note, I only host a couple of the websites I'm responsible for on BH, and I'm thrilled with the sense of community and support you can find on these forums. Great work guys !

Owen

[Sombeech]

Hi Owen.

When I'm ready to publish my website, will I need to remove that entry in my Host file?

Thanks for your help.

[owencutajar]

If you remove the entry from your hosts files, you'll see the same website everyone else is seeing. Provided you have made the correct DNS change to point at the new server, you'll be seeing the new site once this has propagated.

Owen