Taking a Bricks site live and combining with existing live site

Correct, I export my local database and then import it into a new, empty database on the live server. Then I adjust the wp-config with the latest database login credentials and replace the local URLs ( e.g., https://bricks.local » https://bricks.com).

I usually do this with this script. Alternatively, you can do this already in the local WordPress installation with a plugin like Better Search Replace.

Best regards,
timmse

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Thanks for clarifying @timmse

I’m a big lover of BSR - paid for all the way baby!

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Just had a thought - Does Bricks stores any setting/config in wp_posts @timmse ?

Hi flimflam,

afaik all bricks data is stored in wp_options or wp_postmeta.

Best regards,
timmse

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I’ve found some entries in wp_options (below) - Is that all in that table? If not, how can I ID them?

Re wp_postmeta - I can’t ID any in there yet (I’ve got 750k+ (!) entries in that table). Possible to get help finding them ?

It’d be great if the devs could chip in on this to give the definitive answer on where Bricks data in stores in tables too please

Yes folks I’ve now found out that’s where the majority of the Brick data is stored. If you want to find yours you’re going to need to look into wp_postmeta table.

I ran the following SQL to find mine

SELECT * FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key LIKE "\_bricks%" ORDER BY post_id ASC

(A quick translation - show me all the rows where the meta_key field starts with _bricks)

I had 790 entries in there.

Hope it helps someone else

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I’ve been spending ages digging into the database tables and thinking further on this. All of the tips I’ve been given before are great @timmse - I now realise what’s missing is the details of how to merge the current live data with the Bricks templates and page designs.

I’m going to try to quickly reframe this:

  • ServerA has all of the data (as described in posts above)
  • ServerB has an old copy of the data (so I had something to design the new look site from), but importantly, the new Bricks design and layout.
  • I want the data from ServerA running with the new Bricks design I’ve developed on ServerB. The question is how?

We now know Bricks stores its page designs in multiple rows in wp_postmeta (see above) and some setup in wp_options.

If I migrate the data from ServerA to ServerB, the Bricks design of templates and pages (on ServerB, stored in wp_postmeta and wp_options) will be wiped out by the wp_postmeta and wp_options tables coming over from ServerA, won’t they?

The Bricks rows will be wiped out even if I export/import won’t it?

So the question I’d love the answer to @timmse is - How do I migrate the data from ServerA to ServerB, to have the latest data AND keep the Bricks designs?

Should I export the Bricks-related records in wp_postmeta and wp_options on ServerB before bringing in the ServerA data over, the re-import the Bricks-related records in wp_postmeta and wp_options?

Oh my , this is sending me around the bend! :sweat_smile:

Hi flimflam,

This is a tough challenge, which is difficult to answer.

It could be problematic if the IDs of the pages and posts are identical when you move them from A to B. Accordingly, the posts and pages with identical IDs would be overwritten.

I would probably try it (maybe not directly with all data, but with selected pages) and see what happens.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating :smiley:

Hi @timmse - I’m back on this project again.

It’s now at a crunch time - this has to be delivered.

It hasn’t been solvable by the collective brains here - and I haven’t been able to subsequently find a way - to move an existing WP-templated site to Bricks without the serious risk of losing data, or taking it offline .

As they say, “We are where we are.” This site must be delivered.

In desperation, the only way I can think of getting this new Bricks site delivered is by taking the site offline and importing the Bricks templates that have been pre-developed on the Staging server. What do you think @timmse?

You can also take another approach. Clone the existing site to a staging site on the same server. Upload your bricks changes to this staging site. Verify everything is working. Update URLs via Better Search Replace to Live Site URL. Remap the folder for the live site from old folder to this staging site folder (you can do that depending on the control panel or may be just move all the files from staging to old site folder)

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Thanks for the pitch @omega.

One of the issues is that the Live site is quite active, with comments and posts being added regularly, so the staging server would get out of date quite quickly.

Part of this would also be the concerns of Bricks writing to the Staging copy of wp_postmeta and the Live site having new data added to its copy of wp_postmeta - both using the same postIDs, so remerging would not possible.

In that case a scheduled downtime will be required.

Sad isn’t it.

It does seem amazing that this hasn’t been tackled.

It means only totally new sites can be created with Bricks (Elementor has the same issue).

Same problem with developing updates on Staging servers of current Bricks sites - you can only do it on the live server - as you know, best not done.

It’s really limiting the potential use of the product to fresh creations - so short term.

With Big-Brains like @luistinygod and @thomas behind Bricks, I’d have thought (hoped) they’d have come up with a solution.

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If you have a woocommerce with products and stock and you want to implement a custom field?

Wpvivid has an option to work in staging with the same bbdd, but I don’t know how it would behave to changes to an existing page / post or changes in the woocommerce product structure.

Could you use a plugin like Theme Switcha to install and apply all of the Bricks templates for admin users only, then switch themes when you’re ready?

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Oooooo, @zestjosh - thanks for this! A new one to me. I’ll give it a go and report back

I had recently moved a Bricks to site from a staging domain to production, and ran into an issue where all background images weren’t loading at all in the various containers (but all other content seemed fine). I use a platform called Cloudron so my usual routine was a simple domain name change for the app which updates the URLs along with it, but I usually still need to go and use Better Find & Replace plugin to update the other URLs.

In my case, for some reason Better Find & Replace wasn’t finding them all this time (first time I’ve had that issue), and I had to go in and manually edit the database to update the URLs in all places. The WP CLI actually has a good find & replace functionality I wasn’t aware of before, so just used that I believe.

Once I did that, it was all good again. I could tell it was a URL thing because the background images were somehow still pointing to the old staging domain even while the site resided on the prod URL.

Not sure if that’s related in your case but figured I’d share my most recent experience.

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That’s a good general tip @d19dotca - thanks.

Hi @zestjosh - Quick update.

It was all very exciting when I found that Theme Switcha was broadly worked as promised - Ticking the ’ Apply switched theme to Admin Area’ option makes the Bricks menu appear, so you can import templates, etc.

Finally I thought, a fix for this months of trouble I had trying to get site I’ve developed on the Dev server in Bricks to work!

The major issue is that when I click ‘Edit with Bricks’ on the templates, Bricks doesn’t load, but instead the message “Invalid post type” is shown, so I’m not able to make any edits, or change conditions for showing templates.

Sadly back to the drawing board.

I really want Bricks to work, but f*** me, this really isn’t making it easy.

Separate Dev version
Going from the Dev server and trying to apply the Dev templates has exposed quite a few more issues. For example, the Bricks header template calls the menus defines on the server, but even if you have menus with the same name, they don’t appear as they have a different internal (Wordpress) reference number on each server.

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Hey @flimflam

I dont think you will find this ability in any page builder to be fair.

I think you need something more along the lines of versioning. Just had a quick google and this came up, but defo worth investigating this train of thought.