Moving S2 Member to a subdomain

[behladesign]

I have decided that it would be easier to move the site that i have setup at gapzip.com to a subdomain. That will help with the buddypress integration and user experience as well.

I'd like to keep the setup that i currently have on the main domain at gapzip.com and create a mirror install on members.gapzip.com.

I'm wondering if I do that and import the wordpress database if there is anything that I'll need to do to the registration code or setup for the install on members.gapzip.com.

I imagine i'd need to recreate the buttons/code for the signup page: http://gapzip.com/subscribe/

Is there anything else that I need to look out for in terms of the move? I need to get this live by Sunday, so any tips would be great.

Thanks for your help!
Andrew

[Cristián Lávaque]

If you're rebuilding the blog, then it's fine, if you're migrating the database and files, you'll have to fix the wp-cofig.php file and any mention of the domain name in the database to the subdomain. This may include one in a serialized array, in which case you have to update the string's length too.

[behladesign]

Thanks Cristian. I think I can do a find and replace in the database, replacing gapzip.com for members.gapzip.com for the new sub domain. How do i update the string's length? I'm not a database wizard, so I should probably seek some professional help. Do you offer that?

Also, this might be more advanced. Is there a way that I can even combine the two data bases so if a member logs in from gapzip.com they can be redirected to members.gapzip.com if they are approved, or would that startup the issue that I currently have where level 1 members can see level 0 members in buddypress. We want to have each membership level be independent and separate from each other.

[Jason Caldwell]

Thanks for the excellent question.

I imagine i'd need to recreate the buttons/code for the signup page: http://gapzip.com/subscribe/

Is there anything else that I need to look out for in terms of the move? I need to get this live by Sunday, so any tips would be great.

Yes, there are many things to consider.

If you're using PayPal Standard Button integration, the first thing I would point out, is that any existing Subscribers on http://gapzip.com are already tied to that installation through your PayPal Standard Business account via IPN communication. In other words, moving your site completely to a new domain, means that future IPN communications that PayPal will send to s2Member on that previous installation, will begin failing, because the site will no longer exist?

PayPal Standard integration does not provide any way to change this, not that I'm aware of anyway. Perhaps you could try writing in to them, but I'm not aware of this being possible. It's easily doable with PayPal Pro though, but only for Customers created through PayPal Pro integration, or through Express Checkout, not for any that were created through Standard Buttons.

To put it simply, when a Customer clicks a PayPal "Button", s2Member attaches to that Button a special IPN URL that PayPal needs to respond back to. This is recorded during checkout on the PayPal side of things, and then in the future, if a Customer cancels/expires/etc, PayPal will attempt to notify the originating domain, using the IPN URL that was originally recorded when the Customer signed up. If that installation domain no longer exists, the IPN communication will fail.

There are creative ways to work around this. For instance, you might create a redirection from the old site's IPN handler, to the new site's IPN handler ( i.e. /?s2member_paypal_notify=1 ). This may require some additional tweaks by a developer though.

I've also seen some site owners just simply import old existing members using s2Member Pro, and they setup their own EOT Time during import, so that future reliance on the IPN communication is not needed for old Users/Members being migrated to the new system.

Couple of related threads:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=186&p=3083&hilit=migrating+existing+users#p3083
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1163&p=8931&hilit=migrating+existing+users#p8931

So, here is a list of things to be aware of when moving s2Member.

1. Go back over all s2Member configuration options.
Update anything that points to the old domain.

2. Re-create all Payment Buttons/Forms on the new site, or at least change the custom="" Attribute so that it contains the proper installation domain name. Re-creating your Buttons/Forms on the new site will accomplish this for you automatically.

3. Be aware of the issue I described above.

4. Be aware of issues related to WordPress in general, as described here:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress

[behladesign]

Thanks Cristian,

I understand that new members will need to be re-created, and that's fine, as I want to have the new members have a new account on the sub domain. I have exported the database to the subdomain, updated the wp options. I'm uploading the content from the old site and hopefully will be good to go. S2 has the best support ever!

[Cristián Lávaque]

Here's to a smooth migration.