I’ve had several long days trying to migrate a Wordpress site to InfinityFree due to the 10MB limit on file sizes - it’s meant exporting piece by piece and then importing each xml file and then fixing all the failed import problems and uploading the missed graphics.
On top of that, I got a warning yesterday that I’d reached 50% of an arbitrary unquantified CPU usage target and was advised to upgrade to premium. Today, I’ve continued the laborious chunk by chunk transfer and am now probably nearly two thirds through the task - only to be now told that I’ve exceed this CPU usage target and my account is now suspended for 24 hours! - plus told once again that maybe I should upgrade to premium.
I’m also told that if I exceed this 40 times then my account will be permanently suspended - this is hardly encouraging me to continue to persevere with the Infinity Free service and the only reason I have done so is that I’ve now invested many hours on the transfer.
So my question is whether it’s actually possible to run a Wordpress site on your free service or is it just a futile exercise that will ultimately see my account suspended unless I upgrade to premium. I’d rather know now than waste any more time getting my site fully migrated only to lose it and have to start the whole process somewhere else.
It’s not as if I was doing anything particularly unusual if you wanted to migrate a Wordpress site and the site is not even live yet so doesn’t even have any traffic. The main reason I’m not using a paid service is that the site is not being created to generate any income but to serve a community by giving my time for free to set it up and run it.
I’m not at all impressed by the service so far as it seems designed to prevent a Wordpress site being easily migrated by placing hurdles and limits on achieving that task.
I shall spend the next 24 hours of my suspension looking at alternatives - pity because it initially seemed like the right service until I actually tried to carry out the task.
Processing a backup file and restoring content takes a lot of processing power, which is likely why you’re running into the CPU usage limits.
This is one of the reason why we recommend against backup plugins: it puts a lot of stress on the server. Instead, you can transfer a website by simply migrating the full installation, like so:
Unfortunately this is not an option as I’m migrating from Wordpress.com and can only export my content to xml files. The reason for migrating is that I want to be able to install certain Wordpress plugins, which I can’t do on Wordpress unless I subscribe to their premium service. I guess I’ve made the wrong choice for migrating from Wordpress.com as I didn’t expect to encounter service suspensions for what I would not have considered major processing tasks in the grand scheme of things.
Actually, now that I realise that if I did get my site up and running on Infinity Free and somehow unknowingly broke the CPU limit again for just running a Wordpress plugin - my site could then be down for 24 hours on many occasions.
I think it’s better if I just look for an alternative rather than throw more good time after bad as I need a hosting service that will be reliable and not suspend my site for arbitrary reasons.
I know it’s probably the answer you would like to hear, but there is a workaround.
You can setup a PHP and MySQL setup on your own computer, using something like XAMPP. On there, you can install WordPress and import the backup. Since it’s your “server”, you can decide the limits.
When you’ve imported the backups, installed plugins, etc., you can migrate your website from your own computer to your hosting account using the article I linked to above.