wordpress

WP_HOME only fools new pages; old URLs live in the database. WP-CLI search-replace with dry-run and skip-columns=guid is the fix.

TL;DR: Moving a WordPress production dump locally means changing WP_HOME and WP_SITEURL won't fix URLs already stored across posts, meta, and serialized options. Raw SQL REPLACE() is risky because it breaks PHP serialized length prefixes and can overflow column limits. Instead, use wp search-replace with a --dry-run first, always skipping the guid column since those permalinks must never change.

Containers healthy, browser dragged to production. Three first-run Docker mechanisms skip old volumes silently, and wp_options holds one more surprise.

TL;DR: Reviving an old WordPress site in Docker, I got redirected to production because stale URLs were baked into wp_options. Docker's first-run scripts silently skip work when old volumes are attached, so restore the database explicitly and fix URLs directly. Scary-looking MariaDB warnings are often harmless; watch the logs patiently before assuming anything is broken.

One WordPress install, two Git repos: a full Forgejo repo for recovery, a GitHub view repo carrying only source I wrote myself.