I accidentally published Composite C1 from Visual Studio with "Precompile during publishing" when I first set it up and have now come to realize that several plugins do not work with precompile turned on. Unfortunately I have no idea how to reverse this. I've tried several things to no avail. I usually end up with a 500.0 error. If I go to the admin interface everything is working properly, and I can even preview the pages, but from the customer side all I get is a 500.0 error.
Of course I could republish from the Visual Studio project I have, but that project has the default template on it. I've tried copying what appears to be changed on the server to the original project but I end up with a 500 error. I've tried removing all the precompiled stuff on the server but I end up with a 500 error. I'm pretty lost.
At this point I'm willing to do anything. Is there a doc explaining how to copy the content to a newly downloaded copy, kind of like an upgrade doc but "side-grading"? I am using the most current version at the time of writing this 4.2 Update 1
Thank you
Solved use the PackageCreator suggested by wysocki's answer. It was not exactly straight forward to create the package. The errors can very cryptic at times. So here are some of the issues I encountered and how I got past them:
wysocki was correct to suggesting starting with a bare bones installation even though my original project was started with the Venus theme. I tried both ways.
I encountered issues with the MasterLayout and the Page Template Features which are currently not supported by the PackageCreator, although they may be supported in future versions. The solution was to add the missing elements to the fresh C1 project from the original C1 installation in the App_Data/PageTemplates and App_Data/PageTemplateFeatures folders.
A few times I ran into an issue where I added the same page or function twice to the PackageCreator. This was obviously my fault, but it should be mentioned that you can add the same site element twice which throws and error on import. Make sure you are careful to only getting one of each when creating the package to be exported.
If you are getting and error and it uses and Id like "4061397b-ee9e-4512-984d-f2b2d41eb654" I've found that it was very helpful to extract the zip file you are trying to import and then search the extracted folders for that Id. The lines with the Id usually have more information on them that will help you to identify exactly what content page or whatever the error is being generated from.
If you are using installed packages in your project like SimpleSearch for example, make sure you don't add it's functions to the PackageCreator. Install them separately.
I had an issue where I somehow had an element in the Data section that didn't have a "type". The error simply "The type cannot be empty". This was obviously tough to find so I suppose the lesson is, less is more. If you think your project might have a few elements that are unnecessary, don't add them at first and see if the project you import them into complains about missing them. It's much easier to troubleshoot missing elements than it is to figure out which element is causing the issue that you really didn't need.
Is there a doc explaining how to copy the content to a newly downloaded copy
You can try and export content / templates / anything else related to a "package" via Composite.Tools.PackageCreator.
Its latest version gives you quite a lot of flexibility in what you can export ("package") - please its user manual.
Once the package is made and downloaded, you can go on and install it on a new website. If you export / import a lot of content / templates etc, it makes sense to have a "Bare Bones" site as the new one.
All the starter sites like "Neptune", "Venus" are installed as a bunch of packages in specific order during Composite C1's initial setup.