AccessNow Site Replica is a free WordPress plugin that backs up, clones and moves a whole site, even a large one on shared hosting that times out on ordinary backup plugins. Version 1.1 makes sure a moved site doesn’t arrive with plugins or themes missing: a backup now warns about any plugin or theme that is only linked in from somewhere else, and Site Replica Pro won’t send one to a live site.
Get 1.1 from its WordPress.org page, or in your site under Plugins → Add New Plugin, searching for “AccessNow Site Replica”. If you already have it, the update arrives through WordPress. Site Replica Pro 2.1, with the same changes and the stop before sending, is out too.
A plugin that isn’t really there
On a development copy it is common to keep a plugin or theme you are working on in its own folder, and give WordPress a link to it instead of a copy. WordPress follows the link happily. A backup can’t: it stores the link itself, and on another server that link points at a folder that doesn’t exist. The site arrives without the plugin, and nothing said so.
From 1.1, every backup checks each link it copies. A link that points outside the site gets a warning in the backup’s log, naming the folder and where it points, with what to do: install a real copy (from the plugin’s or theme’s ZIP) and back up again. With Pro, sending such a backup to another site stops before anything is sent, because a live site with a plugin missing is a broken site. Links inside the site, which work anywhere, are copied as before.
We found this one ourselves. Our AccessNow LMS demo site links its plugins and theme in from the folders where they are developed, and a send to its live address would have arrived with all three missing. The new check flags exactly those three.
Helpers that stay on your computer
Some small tools only make sense on one machine: a switch that previews a new theme, a shortcut that signs you in for testing. When they are must-use plugins, a backup used to copy them like any other. Now any must-use plugin named local-only- something is always left out, like the local mail catcher already was, so it can never reach a live site.
Leaving things out: exclusions and retention lists everything a backup always leaves out.
Also in this release
- Tested from WordPress 6.4 to 7.1, on PHP 7.4 to 8.4. The tests now run automatically on every change and every week, on the oldest WordPress the plugin supports, the newest, and the next one still in development.
- Resuming an interrupted backup on PHP 7.4 always measures the trimmed file list correctly. Those first weekly tests caught it.
- Pro’s version number moves to 2.1. Pro is now numbered 2.x and built on the free plugin 1.x, so 2.1 contains everything in free 1.1. Nothing changes for you: it updates as usual.
Putting a rebuilt site live? Put a redesign live without losing new orders walks through it.
Get it
Install or update the free plugin from WordPress.org, or download it from the Site Replica page. When you are ready to put a redesign live, Site Replica Pro sends it from your computer and keeps the orders and members that arrived while you worked.
