database not responding on localhost

Question

I'm trying to work on an existing WordPress site on my Mac using MAMP. I've setup a new database using phpMyAdmin and imported the tables from the backup of the online version. I pasted this into wp-config.php:

define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
define('WP_HOME',    'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);

I used this command in SQL to change the URLs to localhost:

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE (post_content, 'http://www.oldsiteurl.com', 'http://www.newsiteurl.com');

When I go to http://localhost the site comes up fine; in the admin I get the dashboard and I can do things like upload and activate a theme, but I am unable to, say, upload new media (get a broken jpg image), or modify the theme – Ultimatum. When I try to go to local pages on the site from the front page, I get the "The requested URL /about was not found on this server."

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Yes, while convenient, let's rule out the variable of using the $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] trick and put in the absolute URLs.

Here are some handy snippets I use when moving a site (you may want to use these to make sure everything is the same on your install):

UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, 'http://www.olddomain.com','http://www.newdomain.com');

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'http://www.olddomain.com', 'http://www.newdomain.com');

UPDATE wp_postmeta SET meta_value = replace(meta_value, 'http://www.olddomain.com', 'http://www.newdomain.com');

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'http://www.olddomain.com', 'http://www.newdomain.com') WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';