Hi @klelietta,
Yes, it’s a separate installation/database based on their replies. But I do agree that you should download a backup first, please do it first. I can’t download your site backup because of privacy concern as it may contain any personal data.
Let me know once you download a backup of your site, then I’ll proceed. And it’s okay too because once we figured the issue and fixed it, then we’ll have to transfer it back to the live one. Hence, backup is really needed on this one.
Thanks 
Ok I asked them to manually have a backup of the website now (usually they create automatic backups every day) so I have the one for now.
Then when /if you nee to push the changes to the live site, before that it’s better we do another… is it ok?
HI there,
Sure, the process maybe slow but safer. Let me know, and I like to see what’s going on too as I can add this to the list for possible workaround 
Thanks!
what do you mean? I have the backup now… you can start checking out the stage site right?
Hi @klelietta,
I mean the process of troubleshooting is a bit slow since we need to backup and troubleshoot, but should be worth it as we can discover new WPML issues.
BUT, I can’t continue with translation issue as of now. It still has URL issue which I can’t find any workaround from their knowledge base. I think you should try this to see what I’m referring :
Go to Admin > Settings > General and change both URL to http://www.staging1.mysardiniaholidays.com, then load the builder or just wait a couple of mins, or sometimes instant, and the URL will just restore back to http://www.mysardiniaholidays.com. And the builder and other feature if the staging URL and internal URL doesn’t match. Is there a way we could have the staging off SiteGround?
I saw similar issue with SiteGround and it’s in contrast with your current issue. It happened after migrating to live site, and the live site has unchangeable staging URLs.
I also used the search replace plugin and been troubleshooting, I just noticed that the replaced URLs are just turning back.
Thanks!
Thanks Rad, the issue here is that i’m not IT savvy and I have no idea where to go or what I am doing even if you have given me some guidelines…
should I ask siteground to help me with this? can you try and do it since you have the access to both the staging site and the live site? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, what steps to take and obviously worried to mess up everything!
Thanks for your advice, this is so frustrating as I don’t know what is wrong. Before the updates everything was working relatively well…
Hello There,
Please check the attached screenshots in the secure note. This is the cause of the issue. The dashboard url is not the same as the site url and the wordpress address url. I wanted to correct this. I was only able to correct the production site but not the staging site. There is no ftp access to the staging site so I cannot edit the wp-config.php file. It is needed so that it will be force to have the same urls. In most case, these two lines should be added in the wp-config.php
define('WP_HOME','http://www.staging.example.com');
define('WP_SITEURL','http://www.staging.example.com');
Hope this explains it briefly.
Hi, I cant see anything when i click on the secure note links … they come out blank.
As already said, what can i do to help you? Should i ask siteground? I have no idea of what is going on and how to fix it… maybe I should show them what you are saying to me? (as soon as I can also see the secure notes)?
Thanks
Hello There,
View the images by copying and pasting it to your address bar since clicking it display a blank page.
If you can give us the ftp details of your staging site, we can log in and edit the wp-config.php file of the staging site so that we can force the site url and the wordpress address url in your staging site.
Thanks.
Thanks, I will do t first thing in the morning tomorrow (it’s 2:40am here). I just wanted to add that I’ve received a warning by the Google webmaster tools and i think it might be related to what we are doing in here?
Hi Clelia,
It seems that you added the code for the main site and not the staging site. Would you please contact your hosting service provider and ask them to add the code my colleague provided to the staging website?
Thank you.
I didn’t do anything…
After Siteground created for me the staging site, the only thing i did was writing in here repeating that i don’t know what to touch or what to do. So if you are referring to the code added (which one? I got so many comments and I’m getting confused) it wasn’t me for sure.
Can you please give me a recap of what you did so far and what I need to ask Siteground? (given that I didn’t touch anything and it seems like we are adding issues instead of resolving them so far)
Thanks!
I am talking about this:
I agree this thread is getting out of hand with so much back and forth. I suggest that you open up a separate thread for the help of the staging website. Whenever it is ok then we can go back here for the WPML issue that you are experiencing.
Thank you.
Hi, I will write in here for now or I’m sure I will get lost folllowing 2 threads, maybe we can clear the staging site issue in here and after that I will open a new post for the WPML issue.
I spoke with sitegroung and this is what they tell me:
Clelia Mattana: STAGED WEBSITE HELP NEEDED (my theme is trying to help me with an issue I have with translating my website mysardiniaholidays.com with WPML) but they canìt help as there are issues with the staging website created by you. Thanks
Clelia Mattana: This question is related to account:keepcalmandtravel.com
Stefani Ch.: Hello
Clelia Mattana: Hi
Stefani Ch.: How may I assist you today with the staging?
Clelia Mattana: ok, I will try to explain even if i’m not IT savvy)
Clelia Mattana: My theme (X theme) is trying to help me out with a translation issue and requested a staged site
Clelia Mattana: I asked one of your colleague to create one for me and they did it
Clelia Mattana: I gave the links to my theme support and they encountered a few issues
Clelia Mattana: I will copy and paste what they said so you have a better idea
Stefani Ch.: sure, thanks
Clelia Mattana: Ok first message from them:
Clelia Mattana: I can’t continue with translation issue as of now. It still has URL issue which I can’t find any workaround from their knowledge base. I think you should try this to see what I’m referring : Go to Admin > Settings > General and change both URL to http://www.staging1.mysardiniaholidays.com, then load the builder or just wait a couple of mins, or sometimes instant, and the URL will just restore back to http://www.mysardiniaholidays.com1. And the builder and other feature if the staging URL and internal URL doesn’t match. Is there a way we could have the staging off SiteGround? I saw similar issue with SiteGround and it’s in contrast with your current issue. It happened after migrating to live site, and the live site has unchangeable staging URLs. I also used the search replace plugin and been troubleshooting, I just noticed that the replaced URLs are just turning back.
Clelia Mattana: Second message (as I didn’t understand what i was supposed to do)
Clelia Mattana: Hello There, Please check the attached screenshots in the secure note. This is the cause of the issue. The dashboard url is not the same as the site url and the wordpress address url. I wanted to correct this. I was only able to correct the production site but not the staging site. There is no ftp access to the staging site so I cannot edit the wp-config.php file. It is needed so that it will be force to have the same urls. In most case, these two lines should be added in the wp-config.php define(‘WP_HOME’,‘http://www.staging.example.com’); define(‘WP_SITEURL’,‘http://www.staging.example.com’); Hope this explains it briefly.
Clelia Mattana: IS THERE A WAY TO ATTACH THE SCREENSHOTS IN HERE?
Clelia Mattana: SO I CAN SEND THEM OVER TO YOU
Clelia Mattana: OR ACTUALLY WAIT, THEY GAVE ME LINKS MAYBE YOU CAN SEE THEM BY USING THE LINKS
Clelia Mattana: FIRST LINK: (DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS FROM THIS MESSAGE)
Clelia Mattana: SECOND LINK: SEE ABOVE
Clelia Mattana: then they asked me this: If you can give us the ftp details of your staging site, we can log in and edit the wp-config.php file of the staging site so that we can force the site url and the wordpress address url in your staging site. Thanks.
Clelia Mattana: after like 5 minutes I also got a message from Google webmaster tools… saying that I had an issue for that website
Stefani Ch.: thanks for the info, allow me a few moments now to go through that so I can assist you further
Clelia Mattana: only the last thing (this google webmaster tool warning that i think is related to all this
Clelia Mattana: they said:
Clelia Mattana: (Google websmaster tool said)
Clelia Mattana: New Index coverage issue detected for site https://www.mysardiniaholidays.com/ To owner of https://www.mysardiniaholidays.com/, Search Console has identified that your site is affected by 1 new Index coverage related issue. This means that Index coverage may be negatively affected in Google Search results. We encourage you to fix this issue. New issue found: Submitted URL marked ‘noindex’
Stefani Ch.: Okay now, I am checking and as I can see it’s basically the same thing in the first and second paragraph, the site url has to be the same as the home url. I have checked that and they are set up correctly, both are http://www.staging1.mysardiniaholidays.com/
Stefani Ch.: Still as they require FTP access I will create an account for you so they can access the staging via FTP, allow me a few moments
Clelia Mattana: They said that they are ok for a while but they convert back to the issue after a while? (or so i understood)
Clelia Mattana: and what about the Google webmaster tool issue?
Stefani Ch.: not sure about that so I can post a ticket and the techs will review the google issue
Stefani Ch.: should I still create ftp access for the staging?
Clelia Mattana: ues, they asked me for that
Clelia Mattana: yes
Stefani Ch.: done, (I WILL ADD ON A SECRET NOTE THE CREDENTIALS)
Clelia Mattana: ok thanks
Clelia Mattana: one more thing
Clelia Mattana: in their messages they also said this:
Clelia Mattana: Hi Clelia, It seems that you added the code for the main site and not the staging site. Would you please contact your hosting service provider and ask them to add the code my colleague provided to the staging website? Thank you.
Clelia Mattana: I replied saying that I didn’t add anything at all as I wouldn’t even know how to do it
Clelia Mattana: Is the reason why they are asking me to provide the FTP credentials?
Stefani Ch.: sure, I am going to post a ticket so let me include everything there
Clelia Mattana: ok thanks
Stefani Ch.: they wanted the ftp access to change the url as I understood, but that is already done
Stefani Ch.: sure, I will let you know when ticket is posted
Hi @klelietta,
It became worst, trying to fix the URLs through configuration and it caused too many redirect error, and the staging went down. I think it still trying to redirect to the live URL even we forced the correct staging URL.
As for the google indexing issue, it could be a different issue as we’re not introducing any changes to the live site. Please check this https://www.blogsaays.com/fix-index-coverage-issues-google-search-console/
Maybe the swift workaround for staging is to create it off SiteGround, like cloning and migrating it somewhere then we can focus on may issue in WPML.
Thanks!
Unfortunately i have noticed the issue of the “too many redirects” and it does’t even show the site anymore.
For the error from the Google search console, are we sure it’s not due to the tests? I never had anything like that before for the other domain that is 6 year old…
For moving the staging website outside Siteground I wouldn’t know how to do it, I might ask a friend if he can do it for me and will let you know.
Unfortunately I wont be able to do it in the next couple of days as I have an intercontinental flight tomorrow morning. I will update you about it when I arrive at my destination.
Also: should I delete the siteground staging website? given that it’s not working?
Ps: this is what they told me at Siteground for your reference:
Clelia,
The staging tool is not changing any of the database entries. We use the Apache’s modules to perform this on a server-side level. Thus, for example, the siteURL in WordPress should stay domain.com even for the staging copy. Please do not reconfigure the applications to use stagingN.domain.com for siteURL as it would not work. All the requests to the application will be processed as they have been made to the real hostname.
One more thing : Please double check once again for the Google issue as it’s super weird.
Thanks!
Hi @klelietta,
Unfortunately, yes, it’s down now, the only workaround, for now, re-creates the staging from the live site and we’re back from the start. And that is why it’s going to be slower
As for google indexing issue, they say it won’t be affected but it’s something we can’t confirm since it’s there something. It may be affected by the test or not, depending on how the staging is connected to the live site. I recommend restoring it from your backup if that’s the case then let’s do the staging off SiteGround.
The issue could be related to your SEO configuration, and it adds no-index and no-follow to your SEO data. It’s not related to the issues we’re testing since your SEO feature is coming from a separate plugin. For now, maybe restoration is the best option, it will restore the data before this issues happened. As for that, you may open a new thread and we’ll check it, given that staging is available and working.
Thanks!
So for the Google webmaster tool issue I should restore a backup from let’s say yesterday and in theory it should fix it (before that I want to delete the current staging website). I checked the SEO settings I had with Yoast but i couldn’t find anything relating to no index so I have no idea what is going on.
For the rest, I will try to create a staging website outside siteground but I’ll have to wait till I’m back at home in Mexico in a few days.
Just a curiosity, what the guy at siteground is saying is that the staging website will always have the normal URL (not what you were requesting) is that correct? You were requesting that the settings— general url would be www.stagingsite…com not the normal www.mysardiniaholidays? or just the http vs the https? It wasn’t clear from your comments. I’m asking to that I know what to ask my friend if he can help me to create a staging site.
Thanks
Hi @klelietta,
Yes, I recommend restoring it from the backup, I’m not sure what happened but if it’s just data related then it should be fixed. We haven’t introduced any changes on it yet (except in staging).
Yes, it seems like that it always use of the live URL even on staging site. Changing it would cause the redirect issue.
Let us know when the new staging is available and loading.
Thanks!
This topic was automatically closed 10 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.