If you have ever tried to move your blogger blog from one address to another due to any reasons, then you might find this post useful. A days ago i was moving one of my old blogs, with 2500 posts in it, to a new blogger blog. I took backup of all posts and pages, then made some essential changes in it before uploading it on new blog. That XML file was around 20 MB in size. This file size is not much if you have got a good internet connection (which was not my case).The problem i faced is not due to slow internet speed, but due to the captcha (I am not a Robot). While i tried to upload the XML backup, first i need to pass the captcha test (which is easier in chrome) and then select the backup file to upload. In my case the uploading was taking around 2 and a half minutes, while captcha remains valid only for 2 minutes. I am telling this fact because i tested this on some of my test blogs. If the size of backup XML is small, which can be uploaded within 2 minutes captcha valdity, then you can easily succeed.
Problem:
- So here the problem is that you can't generate two small backup files by selecting dates of your choice, which should be provided by blogger itself.
- Another way to avoid this problem is that captcha should come into the scene after successful uploading of the backup file. Once the backup is uploaded then captcha should appear before applying the changes on blog. (It can also be done only by the guys working at Blogger).
- A third way to get rid of this problem is super-high speed internet, so that uploading can finish in 2 minutes time. But this solution also can't work for those who have got thousands of posts and pages in their backup XML file.
The Solution:
You need to manually divide your backup XML file into smaller pieces which can be uploaded easily. In my case just two pieces of the backup can work. But breaking a XML file into 2 is not just splitting the file, as here we also need to take care of the proper formatting. How to do that was real challenge. But here i will provide an actual solution.The blogger backup XML file contains backup of posts, pages and comments. Apart from intial formatting of this file, the posts pages and comments are positioned inside the <entry> </entry> tags.
Don't jump to open the XML file in simple notepad text editor, as it will hang. You may use a better text editor such as Notepad++ (i used it). Once you open your backup file in it, make sure that you don't scroll done in hurry to find <entry> tags, as it can also hang your system. At the end of this file almost all <entry> tags are usually put it a single line, which makes it harder to edit.
At this point you need to place all <entry> tags in separate lines (which makes the overall task easier). Run the "Find and Replace" provided in SEARCH menu. You need to set "Search Mode" to "Extended" and the fill FIND and Replace fields before pressing replace all.
Find : </entry>
Replace: \r\n</entry>
Now you need to keep only 500 or 1000 <entry> tags in one file. Keep all other coding same in each file.Make sure that you consider only those <entry> tags which contain post content as shown in bold characters in following example.
<entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx1352.post-XXXXXXXXXXXXXX7241</id>
So make sure that the <entry> tags you are considering have got entries like "post-XXXXXXXXXXXXXX7241" .
In my case i used 1250 <entry> tags in 2 separate backup XML files and then successfully uploaded them in 2 minutes captcha validity period. I feel that being tech-savy made it easier for me to do that, but blogger guys surely need to update the way backup and import works in blogger / blogspot.
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