Help needed re-activating (and relocating) a formerly decommissioned osCommerce Shop Site

[mounsey]

Hi there everyone.

 

Firstly, I'm totally new to both this forum and also (in effect) osCommerce itself - so please bear with me!

Here's my scenario..

 

1. My Client PREVIOUSLY had an osCommerce powered online shop.

2. osCommerce was OK - but the design (etc.) were terrible - so the Client wisely commissioned a new Website.

3. A third party has produced the Website (powered now by Magento) - and the new Shop is live and up and running (on the same Domain as before BUT totally new hosting and new Domain provider too)

4. In the meantime, the OLD hosting was cancelled, so that provider is out of the loop.

 

That's the background. What has happened NOW is that the client has realised some key functionality and data is *missing* from the NEW Shop.

 

Other than that, all is OK with it (the new shop) so they are NOT looking to close the new store - meaning that the original Domain is NOT available (for what I'm about to lead onto).

 

The Client has asked me if I can re-activate the OLD osCommerce Shop - but on a private basis (i.e. on a domain which is not advertsed etc.etc - so that only people "in the know" can access and use it (so as to avoid customer confusion between old and new etc.).

 

The good news is that I have managed to contact the OLD Hosting co. and although the contract WAS cancelled, they were able to provide me with:

 

1. A (seemingly) complete Backup of the CONTENT / files (i.e. osCommerce) - this is in a .tar.gz file.

2. They've also supplied me with the SQL database file

 

My plan WAS to do this..

 

1. Upload (and unzip) the content file into a Domain on my portfolio (it doesn't matter which one).

2. Setup a blank mySQL database (using phpAdmin) - and then import the SQL file into there.

 

I had a feeling that this would be potentially tricky (nb. I'm no technical giant but have a familiarity with most of this).

 

Part 1 of the above went well, courtesy of using "Putty" to unzip the contents of the contents archive (including osCommerce files etc.) - that I was provided with.

 

However... I'm currently seeing nothing more than a 500 Internal Server Error - and have hit a brick wall.

 

Questions...

 

1. Is it actually POSSIBLE for me to carry out what I had in mind / what I have been tasked with?

2. To what extent is it an issue that (previously) the Site appeared to be in the "root" / dedicated hosting - whereas I can only put it on a (good, but shared) business hosting setup.

3. Noting that the client doesn't need, nor bothered about the LOOK etc.etc. - is there another quicker way to achieve this aim?

 

For example.. one alternative idea I had was this..

 

1. Install osCommerce on my (1&1) hosting package.

2. Import the database file from the previous incarnation of the Shop.

 

Would that work? (not tried yet as only came to me recently). I know the Site would have zero branding etc.etc. - but that's fine, as this is more about seeing other (legacy) data etc. - which I'm _assuming_ is in the SQL database??

 

Sorry for the long message. Does anyone on here have experiences with this kind of scenario? (nutshell: Relaunching a formerly decommissioned osCommerce Site, but on a NEW domain AND new Hosting?

 

Thanks in advance,

John

[mounsey]

PS. In case I didn't make it clear, I didn't design or setup the old (osCommerce) OR new (Magento) versions of the Shop. I work for the client as an advisor / consultant - but they have drawn a blank with the new (and old) developers, hence asking me to pick up the pieces! John.

[Hotclutch]

If you have a complete fileset and database, then yes you should be able to rebuild that store. Someone experienced with osCommerce will be able to do it easily for you. You can try posting in the commercial section of this forum for help as well.

[allaboutwicker]

Hi John,

 

Have you adjusted the configure.php files both in the catalog/includes folder as well as the admin (or whatever is called if renamed)/includes folder to match the new server info? They are a bit different for admin from the front end so be careful when editing and uploading to get in correct place and of course have back up copies of everything before any changes.

[ArtcoInc]

 

Have you adjusted the configure.php files both in the catalog/includes folder as well as the admin (or whatever is called if renamed)/includes folder to match the new server info? They are a bit different for admin from the front end so be careful when editing and uploading to get in correct place and of course have back up copies of everything before any changes.

 

This! ...  and ....

 

Depending on how old the original site was, and which version of osC was used, the current version(s) of PHP *will* cause problems with older versions of osC. *If* you can control which version of PHP is running on your domain, you may have to roll it back to an older version. Otherwise, you might have to set up a test server in-house (WAMP, for example), so you can use an older version of PHP.

 

Good luck!

 

Malcolm

[mounsey]

Hi all-

 

First of all, a big thanks to everyone who read my post(s) - and especially to those who replied offering some advice.

 

Since my original post I've tried the other approach I had in mind [nutshell]:

 

1. Clean installation of osCommerce (latest)

2. Changes to the configure.php file(s) - to point the database to the *original* location (I realised that although the Site no longer exists, the *database* (original) was still there) - prior to that I also tried to "Restore" the database on the clean installation. However, despite the progress bar seeming to upload / accept the .sql file I had been provided with, nothing then happened (no confirmation of success (or failure) - and also no impact on the Site at all.

 

However, once I set the /includes/configure.php file to point to the legacy IP address with associated login info etc., all was well. - at least in that regard.

 

(this was a pleasant surprise... but definitely did something - as (for example) on "Advanced Search" the drop-list of Categories was populated with those from the old Site (and so on).

 

My next and final hurdle is getting the _product detail_ pages to work (at the moment you can perform a search - but then clicking on a product returns the user to the Home page (= odd).

 

I can't post links here due to client privacy (sorry) - but the URLs in question (i.e. from Search Results) have this format:

 

http://mydomain.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/1203

 

Does anything look untoward there??

 

John

[mounsey]

Hi John,

 

Have you adjusted the configure.php files both in the catalog/includes folder as well as the admin (or whatever is called if renamed)/includes folder to match the new server info? They are a bit different for admin from the front end so be careful when editing and uploading to get in correct place and of course have back up copies of everything before any changes.

 

At the moment I've only actually adjusted the one in /includes/ (reason being because the "backoffice" / Admin area was working fine (with the default database info) - but then promptly broke when I switched to the (legacy) IP Address etc. for the database. Technically beyond me as to why / why not that one can't be changed too (nb. changing the /includes/configure.php file to point to the legacy database info (even though on a different location / hosting co. to where I have installed osCommerce!) worked _fine_ (a pleasant surprise).

 

John