It sounds like you’re ending up with serialized data stored in some of the fields. Depending on how you’re updating the URLs, that may be causing the serialized data to become invalid and thus get dropped by PHP.
What method are you using to update those values? Some sort of MySQL find/replace? Export, open in text editor, find all, replace, save? Something else.
This is probably the part that’s throwing things off for you:
UPDATE wp_postmeta SET meta_value = replace(meta_value,'http://www.oldurl','http://www.newurl');
Because post meta can be serialized and likely is the case here.
Realistically, I would recommend making use of Better Search and Replace for all aspects of this domain change, as I know that plugin handles serialization for you, and shouldn’t cause the data loss.
OK, I will try.
At the next site I do I try and if there is still the problem I will write to you
I confirm.
If the replacement I do only do the plugin better search and replace, the metaboxes remain compiled.
Thanks
Awesome, thanks for the followup confirmation.
