Launching my site on a staging version

Hi all,

I've tried to set up a dev/staging version of my live site so I can make changes there prior to sending live.

I set up a sub-domain outside of my public_html which I believe is good practice.

I copied all of my files over. I went into PHPMyAdmin, exported the Database, then created a new database, and improrted my SQL file.

Then I updated admin/config.php and ./config.php with the new database details as well as the new directories for each item.

When I try to run my site it doesn't load but instead it goes to http://www.staging1.mydomain.com/instal ... /index.php

Does anyone know why this is and how to resolve it? It says:

The page isn't redirecting properly

Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept cookies.

Given the mangling of the address it looks like you have some sort of recursive redirect going on. The most likely cause is a server setup issue.

As an aside, I would recommend not putting your dev and production site on the same server. Mistakes are too easy. There are a number of other solutions including a dedicated dev machine (a VPS can be had for as little as $5/month on DigitalOcean), a virtual machine such as Vagrant that matches your server, or a local WAMP/MAMP stack.