More things that I have learned:
The AC backup app will do a database backup and store it as a sql folder, which can then be "Restored" by AC into your remote database system. This is an important and valuable feature.
The AC backup app doesn't do the same thing with the site files. You have to choose compression, there are indicators in various places that compression can cause problems, and there's no provision in Restore for handling a compressed file. Rather, you upload it and uncompress it and then try to point Restore at the parts you need.
Bottom line: if you want to upload a site from a dev machine to a live server, I recommend that you ignore Backup and just ftp the site files straight up to the proper destination folder.
To upload the database files, make a dev-machine Backup of Database only. Then run Restore on the live server site, then point Restore at your local db backup, and click go.
This is a pretty different process than you will find on most other cms frameworks. I personally found it to be challenging and frustrating, but that's only because I've never encountered an issue uploading a site before, so maybe it's just me.
Here are some details on the vagaries of uploading an AC site to A2 Hosting live server:
1.) Use the Softaculous AbanteCart Installer.
a. Use the exact same Admin name, username, and password as when you set up your localhost Admin backend access url and credentials.
b. Use the same database prefix as you used for phpmyadmin localhost site database.
c. If it gives you the option, install AbanteCart without demo data. I never saw that option.
2.) Examine your live A2 cPanel database names, database user ID's, and related passwords. Make a note of the A2 database name, user, password you intend to use for the live site.
3.) If you made any core edits on your dev site, you should have a list of them already. Individually ftp those files up to the corresponding live folders in your new AC install, overwriting the original files.
4.) From the dev root, FTP up your template extension folder, plus your resources and image folders and the handful of individual files on root (overwirte).
5.) Check the privileges for the root/index.php and root/system/config.php files. Should be 644, or rw-r-r.
6.) Edit the live root/system/config.php:
a. Change the DB_Database name, Username, & Password to the values identified in Step 2-3 above.
b. Change the Server_Name value to your full live url.
c. Save.
7.) Navigate to your live backend site address. It should come up. If it doesn't, in A2 cPanel, scroll the Scripts bar until you see AbanteCart icon. Click it. Click the pencil Edit button. Make sure that the specified database name, user, and password match the trio of names identified above.
8.) Once the backend is up, go to System>Settings>Store Details - make sure the Store URL and Secure Store URL are set correctly.
9.) Run the live site.
SSL:1.) A2 Hosting - Make sure an SSL certificate is applied to the domain. Various free options are available. One is already in place by default with A2. Use your own if you have one.
2.) Live Backend: Go to System>Settings>Store Details - make sure BOTH the Store URL and Secure Store URL are set to https:// . This is just a weird little characteristic with AbanteCart. No rhyme or reason to it. Counterintuitive. If you don't do this step, your site Home button will take you to a broken homepage.
3.) In file editor, open /system/config.php, change Server_Name value to https://...
4.) In /htaccess, add the following three lines to redirect all traffic to https route:
a. RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
b. RewriteRule ^(.*)$
https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
If you don't do this, anyone who punches your any-non-https url into any search will go to your non-secure site. My own home button took me to my non https homepage, where a handful of images were broke. etc
I love the last bit. A lot of this stuff is absent or obscurely buried in the Docs, but step 4 above is from outer space. No mention of it anywhere, even though AC gives you a preset htaccess file. Quite a rodeo!
Soo, if it weren't for a minimum of 4 years of activity on this forum by llegrand, most of the information I used to wrest a functional site from AC would be absent, and i would have abandoned the framework long ago. Thanks bud.
