Table of Contents

Moving your ProductCart-powered Store

Types of Move

There are many reasons for having to move your ProductCart-powered store. For example:

  1. Moving to a new Web hosting company as you are not satisfied with the current one
  2. Moving from a Web server to another Web server within the same Web host
    (e.g. the current Web server appears to be overloaded and you asked to be moved to a new one)
  3. Moving from a staging Web server to a “production” server
  4. Moving from a “production” environment to a testing environment to set up a development or testing version of the store
  5. Moving from a desktop (local development) to a Web server

Steps to Take

The following steps apply to most of the scenarios above.

Gather the files

This means, for instance, downloading the folder that contains all of your ProductCart files. The folder is named “productcart” by default, but it is often renamed. In the following paragraphs we will refer to this folder as the “productcart” folder.

Some Web hosting company include a way for your to ZIP a folder via the File Manager utility that is now part of many Web hosting control panels. Check your Web hosting account administration area to see if you have access to such a tool. If so, ZIP the folder that contains your ProductCart-powered e-commerce store and download the zipped file, which is much faster than downloading each individual file (and safer too as you avoid the risk of one or more of the files becoming corrupted during the FTP download).

Upload to the new location

Upload the folder to the new Web server.

If you can unzip a file on the new Web server, definitely upload a zipped folder, which is faster and safer, as mentioned above. Many Web hosting companies now offer you the ability to unzip a file within your Web hosting account. Check to see if you can do so. When you unzip the file, make sure the folder is unzipped where you want it to be. Otherwise, remove the unzipped folder and repeat the task in the right location.

Set folder permissions

Since you moved the “productcart” folder to a new location, permissions need to be reset. See setting folder permissions >>

Connect to the database

The instructions here are different depending on whether you use MS Access or MS SQL:

  1. MS Access: change the database connection string inside the file includes/storeconstants.asp
  2. MS SQL, same database: you did not move to a new Web hosting company, plus simply moved Web server. So the database server is the same one. In that case, change the database connection string inside the file includes/storeconstants.asp
  3. MS SQL, new database: If your store is using a new MS SQL database, then you cannot simply download the database and re-upload it to the new host, as you would do with MS Access. There are two ways to transfer your SQL DB to another hosting provider.
  4. Backup and Restore
    You can obtain a complete backup of your SQL database from the original hosting provider and have your new hosting provider restore it for you. Some Web hosting companies will be able to assist you with this task (they might charge a small fee), but others will not.
  5. Database Migration
    Another option is to migrate the database from the original SQL Server to the new SQL Server. We highly recommend that an experienced DBA perform this task as if it is not done properly your store will not function correctly.

Move the “productcart” folder to the new Web server in advance and set folder permissions. When you are ready to complete the move to the new location, TURN THE OLD STORE OFF (Settings > Store Settings > General Settings) BEFORE transferring the database. Failure to do so could result in orders being missed and potentially other database related problems. Leave the old store OFF on the old server/hosting company indefinitely. It should not be turned back on unless you need to go back to it if the move fails for whatever reason. Once you have re-located the database and can successfully connect to it, you can open the new store. You should not re-open the old store as it is possible, until domain name changes have been fully propagated, that customers in some geographical locations may end up at the old store.

You can test whether the new store is successfully connecting to the new/moved database and whether permissions have been properly been set by using the Setup Wizard. You will not re-activate ProductCart. You will instead stop at “Step 2” of the Setup Wizard to take advantage of its diagnostic tools. To do so, connect to the “Setup” folder on the new Web server, using your browser (the folder might have been renamed with some random numbers - check via FTP), and go to the step where you enter the database connection string. Enter your new database connection string, and run the diagnostic utility.

Change store URL

If the store URL has changed as a result of the move (e.g. staging server uses a domain name different from the production server), you will need to let ProductCart know by changing the editing the store URL inside the file includes/storeconstants.asp

Update store settings

There are a few store settings that need to be reviewed and possibly updated. Log into the ProductCart Control Panel (if you are getting a database connection error, review the steps above).

  1. Home page URL: check that it is still correct (e.g. if the domain name has changed, it might need to be edited)
  2. SSL URL: same as above
  3. E-mail settings: ProductCart supports many different email components. Make sure the one you selected is compatible with the new Web server, and verify the validity of the SMTP server address (ask your new Web hosting company for a valid SMTP server that you can use).

Update third-party systems

Change the URL used by third-party systems that need to communicate with your ProductCart store if there has been a domain name change. For example, payment gateways often use some sort of “call back URL” to send data back to ProductCart (e.g. Google Checkout).


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