Something bad happened when importing from Kinsta

[Richardtidmarsh]

Q: Date/Time this occurred (Provide your time zone also)
A: 11am GMT 29/01/26

Q: DevKinsta Version
A: 2.13.6.9096

Q: OS Version
A: MacOS 15.7.3

Q: Docker Desktop Version
A: 4.58.1 (217134)

Q: Were any error codes or messages observed? If so, what were they?
A: Just: Something bad happened - can provide main.log file if required

Q: Detailed Description of the Problem
A: Click on ‘Import from Kinsta’, select any site from my account and start import, the create new site window appears, then between ‘Configuring NGINX’ and ‘Downloading remote site’ I get ‘Something bad happened’, nothing else happens, so I just cancel the process.
This is a new install of DevKinsta, Docker, and on a new device - just setting up dev environment.

[VladimirM (Vladimir Milosavljević)]

Hello Please send us your main.log file. You can find instructions on how to obtain it here: Troubleshooting - Error Codes - Kinsta® Docs

Kind regards!

[Richardtidmarsh]

Hi - Just sent the log file via direct message.

Thanks Vladimir!

[VladimirM (Vladimir Milosavljević)]

Hello @Richardtidmarsh

I see that there are two potential issues:

• DevKinsta reporting Docker isn’t installed
• Database access (root user not allowed)

I would advise addressing the second issue first since we’ve seen that help in many cases.

It is a long fix and some users were able to cut it short by just changing the password of the user directly, but that might not always work.

Please follow steps from this post:

Error: Something bad happened - when trying to import site from myKinsta

Hello @wpcreative-jw As discussed in our chat, I’m posting a complete step by step instructions, if needed in the future. @Seyed My colleague and I gave you the steps in the other threads, but I wanted to tag you here as well. Note: This applies to fixing the issues with site creation that are caused by database access error (in DevKinsta main.log, it’s → ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user ‘root’@‘localhost’ (using password: YES) ). Part ONE - RESETING ‘root’ USER PASSW…

Once done, test again and if the issue persist please provide the main.log again.

Kind regards!

[Richardtidmarsh]

Thanks very much Vladimir.

So - first thing is that I can confir Docker is definitely installed.

I worked thorugh the steps in the linked post.

===============

Part ONE - RESETING ‘root’ USER PASSWORD

• I followed these with no problems, but the same issue persisted when I tried to download remote site, or create a new site.

===============

Part two - GRANTING PRIVILEGES TO ‘root’ USER

• I follwed these, but when I get to this line in terminal:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON . TO ‘root’@‘%’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘my_new_password_here’ WITH GRANT OPTION;

I got the following error:

ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near ‘rootBY ON . %PRIVILEGES@rootTO GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON IDENTIFIED ON WITH …’ at line 1

===============

Part three - UPDATING DevKinsta config.json

I thought I would just jump ahead and try this - the interesting thing is that there is no DevKinsta directory inside Application Support. So I am presuming this is going to be the main problem here?

[merineth (Merineth Edullantes)]

Hi Richard,

Thank you for your response, and I’m sorry to hear that you’re experiencing these difficulties.

Let’s go through each issue step by step until we resolve this. To start, I’d like to confirm that you were able to successfully update the root password, right?

If yes, then we can proceed with part 2. If not, please refer to this post for detailed instructions

Next step, please try copying and pasting the command into a text editor first, then paste it again into the terminal to make sure there are no extra spaces or special characters.

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'your new password here' WITH GRANT OPTION;

If it runs successfully, you should see an output similar to this screenshot below.

Part 3: The Library folder is hidden by default, which is why it doesn’t appear in Finder. To access it, use the following path: ~/Library/Application Support/DevKinsta

Use Finder’s “Go to Folder” using the steps below:

1. Open Finder
2. Click Go in the top menu
3. Select Go to Folder…
4. Paste this path:

~/Library/Application Support/DevKinsta

5. Click Go

If the folder exists, Finder will open it directly. This is what it should look like.

In terminal, you can also use this command to access the folder:

cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/DevKinsta

Next step, please edit the config.json file and look for the “services” line and update the password with your new password. Should look like this.

Once you’re done, save the file and then restart DevKinsta. Please try importing your site again.

I hope this helps, and feel free to let us know if you need any further assistance.

[Richardtidmarsh]

Hi,

Thanks for that. I was able to just update the password manually, and I think that has solved this issue.
I am now facing another - The remote site is downloading to local, but is getting stuck - usually soon after approx 1.5gb. It will stay on that amount for a few minutes, and then give me the ‘something bad happened’ error. There is plenty of storage available on the local device - so I am presuming this may just be a PHP config perhaps.
Can you suggest anything to look at please?

I have sent the main.log via DM.

Thanks

[VladimirM (Vladimir Milosavljević)]

Hello @Richardtidmarsh

Merineth is offline, can you send me the log so I can share it internally with colleagues who will be working on this so we are all in the loop?

Many thanks

[VladimirM (Vladimir Milosavljević)]

Hello @Richardtidmarsh I’m sorry to say that I’m not able to find the exact reason for this issue. Can you please let me know if you are able to:

• create an empty/default site in DevKinsta (not pull from Kinsta)?
• did you try pulling your other site from Mykinsta? This one is Bedrock, I’m wondering if there are difficulties due to that

Please let me know once you test that and apologies for the back and forth.

[Richardtidmarsh]

Thanks @VladimirM

I have tried downloading the original site several more times, it seems to create the database, and get to the downloading site stage and then freezes at some point through that process never completing.

I have also tried to download my other site, that gives me the ‘something bad happened’ error at the database stage.

I then tried to set up a new site. That gets to the point where I am putting in the database details in the usual Wordpress setup, but it will not accept the database details - so I just get ‘Error establishing a database connection’ and can’t get beyond that stage. The DB details are definitely correct.

=======

I have just noticed - when I go to the Adminer DB login page - I am seeing these which could well be relevant:

Warning: Trying to access array offset on null in**/var/www/html/adminer.phpon line1452**

SQLSTATE[HY000] [1130] Host ‘172.172.0.4’ is not allowed to connect to this MariaDB server

[VladimirM (Vladimir Milosavljević)]

Thank you for your reply

This means that the database issue hasn’t been fully resolved. The host IP will change from time to time and from site to site. So root has to have access and all host variations have to be allowed to access.

There’s also an issue of RSync failing but let’s first address this and try to create a new site. If that goes through, then the issue might be site-specific.

Please execute these in the exact order from Terminal:

Please execute the following commands from the Terminal one by one:

1. docker exec -it devkinsta_db bash

2. mysql -u root -p

(enter the password you set before)

3. GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO ‘root’@‘%’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘the password you created’ WITH GRANT OPTION;

4. exit

5. exit

[Richardtidmarsh]

Thanks.

At step 3 I get this:

ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near ‘PRIVILEGES IDENTIFIED PRIVILEGES WITH GRANT OPTION’ at line 1

[Adrian_L (Adrian Lorica)]

It’s throwing a syntax error, likely due to a faulty copy-paste action. You can try manually typing the MySQL command in the terminal instead. I conducted a test and can confirm that the command “GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON root” works.

[Richardtidmarsh]

Thanks @Adrian_L – Yes, I just needed to swap out the single quotes for apostrophes. Once that was done, it worked.

This is great, and I have progress…

I can now set up a new site, and I have been able to successfully download my other remote site - so DevKinsta is working - BUT - I still cannot successfully download the actual site I need.

The process is getting to the ‘Downloading remote site’ stage, and it either hangs mid-way through the download, or, it seems to get right to the end of the download stage, and then it returns the ‘something bad happened’ message (see grabs atached).

On the occasions it seems to get right to the end of the download stage - I can see that in DevKinsta/Public/mysitename - All the site files seem to have downloaded successfully as far as I can tell, and in Adminer, I can see that the database is created, but not populated - no tables exist.

The site is quite large, nearly 9gb, could this be an issue?

Is it possible to run a manual migration and add a site to DevKinsta that way? I’m very familiar with migrating WordPress sites manually, so is there any specific guidance about doing that and connecting it in DevKinsta - so I can sync, etc?

[VladimirM (Vladimir Milosavljević)]

Hello @Richardtidmarsh

Migrating manually might not be the most practical thing to do, specifically since it seems the issues still exist.

Can I ask you to do two things:

• send us the updated main.log file
• are you able to create a site (not pull the site) now that you ran the commands?

[VladimirM (Vladimir Milosavljević)]

@Richardtidmarsh Sorry for the delay, we’ll need more time for investigating this.

I still see the database error. To confirm I’m reading the main.log correctly, you did try to create a new site, not just pull a site from Kinsta?

[VladimirM (Vladimir Milosavljević)]

Hello @Richardtidmarsh

It seems that a specific file on this site is causing the issue. I’ve sent you a DM message with instructions.

If you need to share the log, please send messages to @jackirish since my shift is over.

Kind regards!

[Adrian_L (Adrian Lorica)]

Hi @Richardtidmarsh

Can you please temporarily remove any IP restrictions that might be set on the Kinsta site you’re trying to pull from?

Lock down SFTP/SSH and phpMyAdmin access with IP allowlists

If the SSH IP allowlist is enabled, the Rysync process to pull the site to DevKinsta, will fail.

Let me know how it goes!

[Richardtidmarsh]

Thanks @Adrian_L - I tried that, no joy I’m afraid.

The download is just hanging mid-way through. I’ve tried both the Production and Staging sites.

[VladimirM (Vladimir Milosavljević)]

@Richardtidmarsh

Can I create a downloadable backup of your site to try and import it to my Mykinsta company and pull it from there?