WordPress links all redirect to double URL

Question

A fellow developer built a WordPress website on his local machine. He then migrated the whole installation onto a server. Naturally, all the links in sql were set to localhost:8888. I then ran a SQL update to fix the links so they pointed to the correct domain (which right now is an ipaddress/~username link). I've double checked my work, and it all looks correct.

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'http://olddomain.com', 'http://newdomain.com');
UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'feed://www.olddomain.com', 'feed://newdomain.com');
UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, 'http://olddomain.com','http://newdomain.com');
UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'http://olddomain.com', 'http://newdomain.com');
UPDATE wp_postmeta SET meta_value = replace(meta_value, 'http://olddomain.com', 'http://newdomain.com');

I used that coding, but with the appropriate domain information in there.

So now here’s what’s happening.

Whenever I go to the homepage, it works, but the images don't show up. then i click on a link, or travel to teh wp-admin, and it shows the url twice in the urlbar. so it goes to something like:

http://newdomain.com/~user/http://newdomain.com/~user/post-name-blah-blah-blah

the .htaccess file is all default, (if WordPress is in a subdirectory should it have a rewrite rule for that instead of just /?)

What could cause every link on the site to go to the same url twice, if none of them are listed like that in SQL?

UPDATE:

Alright, so I erased the whole database and reset that up, and then the site works fine. of course that means I lose all my content. I'm guessing i screwed up the sql query's somewhere down the line. But I can't find anywhere that has two urls, or would even cause this. More updates coming as I figure out my issue.

Answer 1

I Solved it! Hopefully if anyone else comes here and has the same mistake, this will help. In the wp_options table the rows for site_url and home need to have http:// in front of them. Somehow on my, my sql query busted that portion. Of course I didn't notice because the address looked correct, because that normally works. but in this case it caused a never-ending loop with some links, and in others just doubled the address.

Answer 2

While doing the database adjustments you did might work, I find them to be problematic. Instead whenever one moves a WordPress site, you need to properly adjust configurations in your WordPress install in the wp-config.php file on the following variables:

define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://newdomain.com/wordpress');
define('WP_HOME', 'http://newdomain.com/');
define('WP_CONTENT_DIR', '/path/to/your/wordpress/wp-content');
define('WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://newdomain.com/wp-content');

This will force your install to use the newdomain.com URLs. Also, when you do this the first time set the RELOCATE setting to true like this:

define('RELOCATE', true);

That basically tells WordPress to rejigger (that’s my technical term for it) it’s stored settings for the new settings. And after you have reloaded your site & it works as expected, set RELOCATE setting back to false like this:

define('RELOCATE', false);

But you also say this:

(if WordPress is in a subdirectory should it have a rewrite rule for that instead of just /?)

That has to change if you are placing WordPress in a subdirectory. So let’s assume that WordPress is in a subdirectory called coolsite/. Then change the default WordPress .htaccess from this:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteBase /
  RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

To this; note the way I changed the RewriteBase & the last RewriteRule:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteBase /coolsite/
  RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteRule . /coolsite/index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress