Ken's Quick Tips

Moving prestashop to another host is an easy process but can also make your head spinning especially if your site is using Smarty templates.

To move the site and make it work you only have to follow the following steps

1) Move all the files (use FTP or any other method)
2) Export and import the database to the new server.
3) Navigate to site/config/settings.inc.php and update the database details. Remember to update the __PS_BASE_URI__ as well to reflect your current settings.
4) If you are using Smarty templates, MAKE SURE you enable write permissions for the entire folder.

NOTE:
Be careful with permissions step if you are going live

After moving prestashop store to another server, I failed to login to the backend page. I got the message ‘employee does not exist, or bad password’

Reason:
Cookies don’t match:

Solution:
Update the employee’s password with matching cookie:

SQL:

UPDATE employee SET passwd = md5(”<COOKIE_KEY><yourNewPassword>”) 
WHERE email = “youremailaddress”;

You can find cooking key in the config/settings.inc.php

define(’COOKIE_KEY‘, ‘cccccccccccccc’);

E.g

UPDATE employee 
SET passwd = md5("ccccccccccccccYOURNEWPASSWORD") 
WHERE email = "youremailaddress";

Password (new as old) must have at least 8 characters!