Troubleshooting: Site URL is not defined in this site. Please check your multisite settings

Symptoms

When importing a package to a site (or multisite) – you will get a runtime error:

Site URL is not defined in this site. Please check your multisite settings

Cause

The target site URL (siteurl) is missing in the database options table. When restoring the package – Prime Mover needs the target site URL information to complete the restoration. It will also need the target site URL so the auto-search and replace process can be done. This is to adjust to origin site URL (from the source site) to the target site URL.

Therefore site URL is required when restoring the site. If this is missing – the package cannot be restored and it returns runtime error.

Solutions

• If you have access to your database, find the options table of the site / subsite. Options table is where WordPress options and settings are saved. Commonly it is named as {prefix}_options . For example wp_4_options.
• Add new option with the following information:

option_name : siteurl

option_value: https://replacethiswithyoursiteurl.test

Make sure to use correct site URL as you have expected it. If your site uses HTTPS – start the URL with https://. Otherwise if your site does not use HTTPS , simply use http://

• Make sure to save the changes. After saving the changes, siteurl should be added to your options table as follows.

• Once saved and siteurl exists in your target site options table. Repeat the package import /restoration. It should work this time.

Alternative solutions

• If your site is a multisite – you can delete that subsite having this issue (if it’s OK and not needed). Then create another blank subsite and get it’s new blog ID. Once you have the newly created blog ID, you can re-create a new multisite package (from the source site) targeting the new blog ID. You can then restore this package to the newly created blank subsite. You should not get this error again.
• If your site is single-site – you can check this alternative solution. Or much better – you can reset your single-site to a fresh WordPress install so WordPress core can reset the siteurl to it’s default values, just in case your site is corrupted.

Contact tech support

If you are still having issues after following the above troubleshooting steps. Please contact our tech support so we can assist you. Please include details, logs, screenshots or much better site access if you allow.

Last updated: May 25, 2024