Importing via WordPress Importer doesn't import featured images

[Paolo Lanna]

Hello there. We have exported calendar data (venues, organizers, and events separately) from one of our websites via WordPress’s built-in Import/Export functionality and are attempting to import it to another site using the WordPress Importer. Everything imports fine except for the featured images of the events. The XML generated for the events on export looks fine, has the same format of featured image attachment as normal posts, but while posts were able to download and import file attachments when toggled on events were not.

The WP with the destination calendar is version 4.6.14 and pro is 4.4.25 while the source WP has 4.6.13 and 4.4.24.2. Both are WordPress 4.9.5. We will update both calendars, but don’t expect the current versions 4.6.15 and 4.4.26 will solve the problem.

[Barry]

Hi Paolo,

Thanks for reaching out 🙂

Thinking of post data and exports in WordPress on a general level, the featured image is usually stored as a piece of post meta field which contains the ID of the image. Here’s an example of how this looks, once exported to XML:

<wp:postmeta>
	<wp:meta_key><![CDATA[_thumbnail_id]]></wp:meta_key>
	<wp:meta_value><![CDATA[123]]></wp:meta_value>
</wp:postmeta>

In my example, the featured image is an uploaded image which has a post ID of 123. This is important because:

• If you are only importing/exporting events, venues and organizers then the media post data will be missing on the destination site
• Unless you are importing to a ‘pristine’ installation with no existing data in the post table, that post ID may not exist or may point to the wrong type of post

That to say, I’m not sure this is a shortcoming of our plugins so much as a limitation of what is possible with WP’s native import/export tools.

Does that make sense? Let me know if you have more questions! Do also feel free to share your export data if you like.

[Support Droid]

Hey there! This thread has been pretty quiet for the last three weeks, so we’re going to go ahead and close it to avoid confusion with other topics. If you’re still looking for help with this, please do open a new thread, reference this one and we’d be more than happy to continue the conversation over there.

Thanks so much!
The Events Calendar Support Team

[Author]

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