Changed WP-Config – Site is now down – Help!

Did you do this just to be sure that there isn’t a problem that has crashed the server?

Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

When you created the new database, did you import the backup from the old one?

Does the old database still exist?

I did it because I’m an idiot and didn’t understand how these sites actually work. I thought I was clever and it was a shortcut to having an SQL database for my site that was 5.0 rather than 4.0.

To answer your questions-
I emailed that address and it bounced back as undeliverable. I have contacted my servers technical support.

I did not import the data from the old DB to the new DB.

I have backed up a copy of the old DB.

The old DB still exists.

It still doesn’t make sense to me, is it a WP registration thing?

If the DB is still there and WP-Config has the right login info, why doesn’t it work?

Why would pointing it to a different incorrect DB for a minute mean it can no longer log in to the old DB?

Thanks for your help.

If the old DB is still there, with all my data still there,

sorry the first bit if my question was just asking if you had contacted the hosting company – nothing else. If the email address in their message is incorrect, there should be updated details on their site – possibly a ticketing system once you’ve logged onto your hosting control panel.

Have you cross referenced what’s in your wp-config.php with the db connection details? username, password, hostname & db name. Is the table prefix correct? double check by viewing your tables in the database in phpMyAdmin.

If you’ve connected wp to an empty database, I think it will normally prompt to install rather than throw up an error, but you’d need to import the db backup to the new db if you want that to use that one and see your content.

can you elaborate on what you mean by a PHP update issue? were you editing a plugin or your Theme when the site started showing the error?

I appreciate your help and I did not take any offense to the question, it was a legitimate one.

To start from the beginning, I had wanted to install WordPress version 3.2.1 on https://www.milwaukee-business-lawyer.com. When I did so, the site continued to work, but the wp-admin would not let me login any more because I was running a 4.0 version of SQL (which I understand to be the same or at least linked to the PHP version). So, I tried to update the php or sql version from 5.0 to 4.0 by changing the .htaccess file as recommended by 1and1. It did not work, so I tried my ill fated attempt to simply move the site to a new 5.0 database (in my naivete I did not export/import the database, so of course it did not work).

Thus, I assumed that simply changing the login back to the old database would mean that it would work again as it had (allowing the site to be up but preventing me access to wp-admin)

The more I read about this though, the less it makes sense. I have gone back and double checked my login credentials for the wp-config as related to my old database, and everything is right. In fact, I changed the password through my phpAdmin with 1and1 just to make sure everything was right (and of course changed it on wp-config).

Everything I read tells me WP is forgiving about these things, and as long as the domain is the same it doesn’t care what Database it points to, as long as the data is there.

Even if the database is wrong, shouldn’t my site still show up just without any content, only the formatting contained within WP-Content on the FTP server?

I am really at a loss here because the data is there, and the login information is right, not sure where to go from here.

wp-admin would not let me login any more because I was running a 4.0 version of SQL (which I understand to be the same or at least linked to the PHP version).

No – they’re completely different.

So, I tried to update the php or sql version from 5.0 to 4.0 by changing the .htaccess file as recommended by 1and1. It did not work.

That’s for changing from PHP4 to PHP 5 – which you also need. But you still need to upgrade your database to MySQL5 via your hosting account.

Do you have a database backup from before you made all of these changes/

I’m not sure what you mean by the changes.

I have a back up of my WordPress files (WP-Content, WP-Control, etc.) from my FTP folder, from before I upgraded to WP 3.2.1

The SQL database backup I did yesterday, so it was after I had changed my WP-Config file.

Is that what you are asking?

FIXED!!!!!

It turns out that in an attempt to update my php through .htaccess, I screwed up my whole site. However, once .htaccess was fixed, everything worked.

Then I exported/imported my site to a new MySQL 5.0 database and everything works, even the admin section of 3.2.1-

Thanks for all of your help. a classic case of when you change two things but assume it was the wrong one that caused you problems… should have known it was .htaccess.

Great News! Glad its fixed. I’ve never seen a broken .htaccess cause a 500 error before so I’ll remember that it can.