I have multisite environment all working but need a complete working copy of it for testing.

I tried taking a complete backup and installing to new location but the symbolic links broke/disappeared.

So we took another complete backup of live site, renamed the live site to www.aatest.org.nz. Then restored the backup to it's original location (www.aamembers.org.nz)

The restored site at aa.org.nz works perfectly. However the renamed original live site is not.

The symbolic links again appear to be broken so that you can see the mastersite www.aatest.org.nz but both the slaves are blank pages www.aatest.org.nz/multisites/main.

I tried resaving the slave sites but I get an error "Unable to create target folder".

Do you have any idea how to restore the symbolic links so that we can have a working test environment?

When you restore an environment that contain Symbolic Link, it is better to delete all the symbolic link and let JMS Multisites rebuild them at the new location.
You will have to modified the deployed directory to reflect the new location and resave the slave site definition.

So review your deployed directory of each slave site and resave them once you have deleted the existing symbolic link. This will rebuild the symbolic link at the new location.

How do I go about deleting the symbolic links? I have spent a full day trying a bunch of things before asking but I appear to be getting lost.

I tried deleting the two slave site configurations and even the template (without deleting current data in the two slave databases). I also deleted the two subdomains also then started again.

Created the subdomains. Created the template. Then created two slave sites. It appears that the database sharing occurs for one table in the _comprofiler but then no others.

Concerning the delete of Symbolic Link, you can use a FTP or File Manager to delete them.
If you delete the slave site and redefine it, you will loose your current "configuration.php" file and you have a new "configuration.php" rebuilt based on your JMS Template rule.

Concerning the DB, you probably already have this link or when you restored the DB, the table was not present and when you have resaved the slave site, perhaps you used a rule where you ask to share the Community Builder (comprofiler).
This could explain why you have this link.
So verify your rule and what you had before to resave the slave site.

Thank you so much - that was a huge help!

All up and running :-D

Edwin - can you explain (or point us to a location) that fully explains how the symbolic links work?

I have a MAJOR issue today as my host Rackspace decided they needed to migrate my content to a new server, thus all the physical files paths had to be updated.

While they ran a script on my physical files and the databases to change that path, since this migration anytime I try to update a slave site I receive errors that none of my symbolic links can be updated

Unable to create the symbolic link [administrator] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/administrator].
Unable to create the symbolic link [components] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/components].
Unable to create the symbolic link [content] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/content].
Unable to create the symbolic link [includes] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/includes].
Unable to create the symbolic link [language] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/language].
Unable to create the symbolic link [libraries] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/libraries].
Unable to create the symbolic link [master_artwork] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/master_artwork].
Unable to create the symbolic link [modules] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/modules].
Unable to create the symbolic link [multisites] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/multisites].
Unable to create the symbolic link [plugins] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/plugins].
Unable to create the symbolic link [xmlrpc] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/xmlrpc].
Unable to create the symbolic link [ (8:8:11 11:17 AM).htaccess] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/ (8:8:11 11:17 AM).htaccess].
Unable to create the symbolic link [favicon.ico] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/favicon.ico].
Unable to create the symbolic link [robots.txt] -> [/mnt/stor13-wc2-dfw1/491353/cbwhb.campbowwowusa.com/web/content/robots.txt].



Now if I create a new slave site, there is no problem. My issue is that I already have over 80 sites deployed, each using their own database. Do I understand this correctly that I have a delete all the physical files for my slaves and re-deploy the sites? If so, can I then just restore from database backups as the re-deploy will overwrite the databases of the slave sites? I hope there is an easier solution here. This is terrible timing!