title: WordPress not exporting or importing featured image
body: <p>I have been trying to export my WordPress posts in order to import them into a clean WordPress install. The post are imported, however the featured images is not imported.</p>
  
  <p>I have made sure I exported a small number of posts to rule out a timeout error.</p>
  
  <p>I took a look at the xml of the export and could not find a  xml value with a related jpg for the post. Here is one post item from my export xml (edited for privacy):</p>
  
  <p>I do notice the meta key of " _thumbnail_id ".</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;item&gt;
      &lt;title&gt; MY POST TITLE &lt;/title&gt;
      &lt;link&gt;http://www.MY-DOMAIN-NAME.com/MY POST TITLE/&lt;/link&gt;
      &lt;pubDate&gt;Mon, 01 Jul 2013 17:31:11 +0000&lt;/pubDate&gt;
      &lt;dc:creator&gt; AUTHOR &lt;/dc:creator&gt;
      &lt;guid isPermaLink="false"&gt;http://www.MY-DOMAIN-NAME.com/?p=12429&lt;/guid&gt;
      &lt;description&gt;&lt;/description&gt;
      &lt;content:encoded&gt;&lt;![CDATA[http://youtu.be/VIDEOCODE
  
   &lt;a href="http://www.MY-DOMAIN-NAME.com/?s=MY+QUERY" class="mo"&gt;Read More...&lt;/a&gt;]]&gt;  
    &lt;/content:encoded&gt;
      &lt;excerpt:encoded&gt;&lt;![CDATA[]]&gt;&lt;/excerpt:encoded&gt;
      &lt;wp:post_id&gt;12429&lt;/wp:post_id&gt;
      &lt;wp:post_date&gt;2013-07-01 12:31:11&lt;/wp:post_date&gt;
      &lt;wp:post_date_gmt&gt;2013-07-01 17:31:11&lt;/wp:post_date_gmt&gt;
      &lt;wp:comment_status&gt;open&lt;/wp:comment_status&gt;
      &lt;wp:ping_status&gt;open&lt;/wp:ping_status&gt;
      &lt;wp:post_name&gt;MY-POST-TITLE&lt;/wp:post_name&gt;
      &lt;wp:status&gt;publish&lt;/wp:status&gt;
      &lt;wp:post_parent&gt;0&lt;/wp:post_parent&gt;
      &lt;wp:menu_order&gt;0&lt;/wp:menu_order&gt;
      &lt;wp:post_type&gt;post&lt;/wp:post_type&gt;
      &lt;wp:post_password&gt;&lt;/wp:post_password&gt;
      &lt;wp:is_sticky&gt;0&lt;/wp:is_sticky&gt;
  
      &lt;category domain="category" nicename="music-videos"&gt;&lt;![CDATA[Music 
     Videos]]&gt;&lt;/category&gt;
      &lt;category domain="post_tag" nicename="MY-TAG"&gt;&lt;![CDATA[RMY TAG]]&gt;
     &lt;/category&gt;
      &lt;category domain="category" nicename="reggae-music-video"&gt;&lt;![CDATA[Reggae Music Videos]]&gt;&lt;/category&gt;
      &lt;category domain="category" nicename="video"&gt;&lt;![CDATA[Video]]&gt;&lt;/category&gt;
      &lt;wp:postmeta&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_key&gt;_edit_last&lt;/wp:meta_key&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_value&gt;&lt;![CDATA[9]]&gt;&lt;/wp:meta_value&gt;
      &lt;/wp:postmeta&gt;
      &lt;wp:postmeta&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_key&gt;_thumbnail_id&lt;/wp:meta_key&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_value&gt;&lt;![CDATA[12431]]&gt;&lt;/wp:meta_value&gt;
      &lt;/wp:postmeta&gt;
      &lt;wp:postmeta&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_key&gt;robotsmeta&lt;/wp:meta_key&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_value&gt;&lt;![CDATA[index,follow]]&gt;&lt;/wp:meta_value&gt;
      &lt;/wp:postmeta&gt;
      &lt;wp:postmeta&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_key&gt;_oembed_c0627bbe93a4ea2be1138b1197ad7c&lt;/wp:meta_key&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_value&gt;&lt;![CDATA[&lt;iframe width="500" height="281"
    src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4ZlUX9o8D1I?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" 
    allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;]]&gt;&lt;/wp:meta_value&gt;
      &lt;/wp:postmeta&gt;
      &lt;wp:postmeta&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_key&gt;idptt_tweeted&lt;/wp:meta_key&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_value&gt;&lt;![CDATA[1]]&gt;&lt;/wp:meta_value&gt;
      &lt;/wp:postmeta&gt;
      &lt;wp:postmeta&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_key&gt;_oembed_40c0cae11733595001b4711ce77e07&lt;/wp:meta_key&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_value&gt;&lt;![CDATA[&lt;iframe width="584" height="329" 
    src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEOCODE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" 
  
     allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;]]&gt;&lt;/wp:meta_value&gt;
      &lt;/wp:postmeta&gt;
      &lt;wp:postmeta&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_key&gt;_oembed_2fc8ceb52fa6df35be292c5639fef0&lt;/wp:meta_key&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_value&gt;&lt;![CDATA[&lt;iframe width="540" height="304" 
   src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEOCODE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" 
   allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;]]&gt;&lt;/wp:meta_value&gt;
      &lt;/wp:postmeta&gt;
      &lt;wp:postmeta&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_key&gt;_oembed_80aa58fde2202424507180b82beb0b&lt;/wp:meta_key&gt;
          &lt;wp:meta_value&gt;&lt;![CDATA[&lt;iframe width="620" height="349"
     src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEOCODE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" 
    allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;]]&gt;&lt;/wp:meta_value&gt;
      &lt;/wp:postmeta&gt;
  &lt;/item&gt;
  </code></pre>