Thanks for your reply Vinnie!

I had failed to mention that I did change the file path in the process, and this is what I had done:

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'http://localhost:8888', 'http://www.newsite.co.nz/') WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';
UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, 'http://localhost:8888','http://www.newsite.co.nz/');
UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'http://localhost:8888', 'http://www.newsite.co.nz/');
UPDATE wp_postmeta SET meta_value = replace(meta_value,'http://localhost:8888','http://www.newsite.co.nz/');

NB: actual site not ‘newsite.co.nz’

But I went ahead and tried the Duplicator anyway, although regrettably due to firewall issues I can’t resolve currently, uploading the archive will go in an endless loop which prevents the process going forwards. I’m looking into fixing this right now.

Thanks for your information, I’ll keep you updated in the process.

Kind regards