Cloning WordPress instance in Plesk fails: Too many levels of symbolic links

Symptoms

• The following warning is displayed when cloning WordPress instance.

  PLESK_WARN: An error occurred while setting the correct permissions for files (644) and directories (755) on the WordPress installation 'staging.example.com'. openat 'db.php' failed: Too many levels of symbolic links Failed to open safely /var/www/vhosts/example.com/staging.example.com/wp-content/db.php: Too many levels of symbolic links

• The file with symbolic link mentioned on error (db.php) belongs to a WordPress plugin, e.g. query-monitor:

  # ls -lah /var/www/vhosts/example.com/wp-content/db.php
  ..
  db.php -> /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins/query-monitor/wp-content/db.php
  ..

Cause

WP Toolkit bug EXTWPTOOLK-9401: WP Toolkit cannot process the symbolic link created by the plugin "query-monitor".

Resolution

1. Log in to Plesk.

2. Navigate to Domains > example.com > WP Toolkit > Plugins.

3. Disable the affected WordPress plugin on the source website before cloning.

4. Clone the website and enable the plugin again on the destination (newly cloned) website.