database backup – urgent help please

Have you checked with your hosting provider to see if they currently have a mysql server problem? If you followed the instructions on the page mentioned, it’s highly unlikely that it was anything that you did.

It doesn’t look like a server problem at that end. When I log on back to mysql, all the tables are still there. And Yes I did follow the instructions, clicked go and saved the downloaded file to my desktop — but now I’m thinking maybe I checked some boxes I wasn’t supposed to??

I get this message when trying to open the site with IE:

The website cannot display the page
HTTP 500
Most likely causes:
The website is under maintenance.
The website has a programming error.

Have you checked the backup file? Does it look like it contains data as well as the table structures?

If you think the database was damaged, you could try restoring it using the very backup you just created.

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Restoring_Your_Database_From_Backup

Thanks esmi. The backup file on my desktop is in a notepad format with a .sql extension. Is that how it’s supposed to look?

Yes but it’s more what’s within the file. A decent backup should contain some very long lines such as:

INSERT INTOwp_posts(ID,post_author,post_date,post_date_gmt,post_content,post_title,post_excerpt,post_status,comment_status,ping_status,post_password,post_name,to_ping,pinged,post_modified,post_modified_gmt,post_content_filtered,post_parent,guid,menu_order,post_type,post_mime_type,comment_count) VALUES (‘1’, ‘1’, ‘2009-07-02 10:01:44’, ‘2009-07-02 14:01:44’, ‘Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!’, ‘Hello world!’, ”, ‘publish’, ‘open’, ‘open’, ”, ‘hello-world’, ”, ”, ‘2009-07-02 10:01:44’, ‘2009-07-02 14:01:44’, ”, ‘0’, ‘https://www.domain.com/?p=1’, ‘0’, ‘post’, ”, ‘1’);

Reviewing my steps, I think I have checked extra boxes under structure and Data that I wasn’t supposed to. Can I still restore the database using the backup done this way? Thanks.

Yes, it looks so but I’m still wondering whether it contains more than it should…here are a few lines from the top. Do they look correct to you? thanks again.

@OLD_CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS=@@CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION=@@COLLATION_CONNECTION */;
/*!40101 SET NAMES utf8 */;

—
— Database: myblog
—

— ——————————————————–

—
— Table structure for table wp_comments
—

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS wp_comments;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS wp_comments (
comment_ID bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
comment_post_ID int(11) NOT NULL default ‘0’,
comment_author tinytext NOT NULL,
comment_author_email varchar(100) NOT NULL default ”,
comment_author_url varchar(200) NOT NULL default ”,
comment_author_IP varchar(100) NOT NULL default ”,
comment_date datetime NOT NULL default ‘0000-00-00 00:00:00’,
comment_date_gmt datetime NOT NULL default ‘0000-00-00 00:00:00’,
comment_content text NOT NULL,
comment_karma int(11) NOT NULL default ‘0’,

I’ve seen that before on some backups. As far as I’m aware, it shouldn’t be a problem.

I backed up once using the host backup method, and my blog dissappeared. After trying several things, I called tech support at the host. They said it was on their end and that it would take a couple hours to fix. They DID correct the problem and my blog was back up in a couple hours.

thanks frioman. I spoke to tech support, they said the data base is still there but while trying to access it I changed the password (true!) so it’s not the same one the website uses to access the database. They said I need to go to wp hostings configuration.php file to correct it. Where do I find this file? I don’t see it when I go back to mysql, is it inside one of the tables?
thanks a lot.

how typical is that ?? look for the file in your wp folder: wp-config.php

Thanks Xamataca. I assume that means I’m not the first one to commit that error! Best way to learn. Now I have to figure out where to find that folder…, there are several wp-…etc listed but none is called wp-config.php! or maybe I need to look somewhere else? I know this is basic but first time dealing with phpmyadmin is quite intimidating. will figure it out…

Done. thanks Xamataca, esmi and frioman. What a learning curve!