Copying Qlik Sense's production database to test server results in failure

Copying Qlik Sense's production database to a test server results in failure.

Among the other things, the Security Database logs contains errors like "Decrypting the encrypted string in the database is not possible; this is probably due to changing the secrets key in the server certificate and not changing the old database value."

Environment:

Qlik Sense, any

There are several things to consider when copying a production database to a test server:

1. if no changes are made, the new server will try to access the files in the Service Cluster folders. This might result in either the Qlik Sense services failing to reach those folders (if no access is granted to them from the new machine) or, worse, modifying and possibly corrupting the production files (if access is granted). Make sure to edit the paths following  How to change the share path in Qlik Sense (Service Cluster) so that they point to the shares that are meant to be used by the test server, before starting the Qlik Sense Repository Service.
2. Certificates will be different. This will need to be addressed following the instructions in Repository System Log Shows Error "Not possible to decrypt encrypted string in database"