You started moving a site in, and nothing has changed for a while. While your browser uploads an archive, the bar under the form shows Uploading … with a percentage. After that, the progress panel takes over, and its heading tells you which state the import is in. Each state gets stuck for different reasons.
Why it happens
| Heading | What is going on | What gets it stuck |
|---|---|---|
| Receiving your files | Your upload has arrived, and we are checking it and putting it in place for a worker. This normally takes seconds. | The request was cut off while we were doing that. |
| Queued | The files are with us, waiting for a worker ("usually under a minute"). | No worker has picked it up. That part is ours. |
| Moving your site in | The worker is busy in your site. The line below says which step it is on. | A very large database or archive, or a slow old host during a pull. |
Large sites simply take time. Importing the database and Copying files from your old host can run for a long while on a multi-gigabyte site, and the Technical log keeps adding lines while they do.
Fix it
- Check the page is still updating. If the line under the heading says "Your session has ended, so this page stopped updating. The import carries on — reload the page to follow it.", sign in again and reload. The import itself did not stop.
- Open Technical log. If lines are still being added, the import is working: leave it. While it says Moving your site in, you can close the page; it carries on without you.
- The upload bar stopped? Check you are online, then press Start the move again. The pieces that already arrived are kept, so the upload carries on from where it stopped. This works after a reload too, in the same browser: choose the same file again, then press Start the move. A different file, or one you changed since, starts from the beginning. Pieces that are not used are deleted after a day, so a much later try also starts from the beginning. If you see "Your session expired while the file was going up", reload, sign in and start again. Over 4 GB, or told "That is more than we can import in one go": split the media out of the archive and upload it over SFTP afterwards.
- Stuck on Receiving your files, or on Queued for more than a few minutes? Press Cancel this import, then start the move again. Cancelling here is safe: "Cancelled. Nothing was changed on your site." If it sticks again, contact us; a stuck queue is ours to fix. If you leave it, we stop it automatically after 6 hours and it ends as Import failed: "Your upload never finished arriving" or "Our import service did not start this import", and "Nothing on your site was changed". We are alerted when our side did not start it. An import that was queued with all its files can then be started again with Try again.
- Stuck on Moving your site in, with no new log lines? This state cannot be cancelled, because the worker is already changing your site. If it reports nothing for 6 hours, we stop it automatically and it ends as Import failed with "The import stopped reporting progress and was abandoned."
Caution: Restoring the pre-import restore point replaces the site's current files and database with the state from just before the import.
- After an Import failed. If the panel says "This import never reached your site, so nothing on it was changed", press Try again. Otherwise your site's files are unchanged, but its database may already have been replaced, because the import clears the database before loading yours. If the site looks wrong, press Go to the pre-import restore point (or Find the pre-import restore point) and restore it (Backups and restore). Then fix what the red message says and press Try again. Try again reuses what the import already had: the files you uploaded (kept for 24 hours after the failure) or the same download link, so there is nothing to upload again. To send a corrected backup instead, use Import again below the panel. A pull from your old host always starts again from the form, with the login typed again: we use it once and then delete it.
The steps of the move and the formats we accept are in Move an existing site to veldhost.
Still stuck?
Open Technical log and copy its last lines. Then contact us with the site name and those lines, or use Still stuck? Ask support on a failed import.