I upgraded to WordPress 4.0 and now I'm back to "Hello World"

Thank you, Jan. The account I’m using now (leehodson) is the one that needs to be kept ‘active’. The older ‘Lee’ account can be made inactive for forum posting purposes.

I know why the ‘autofill forms’ extension was defaulting to the wrong account: https – the correct account lacked the https? regex rule for the autocomplete field.

Lee:

If I go to dashboard, I have to go through the Jetpack step where it says “publish and go to your dashboard.” I think this might generate yet another installation, so I’m not sure I want to do that. I probably wouldn’t see any posts because the site is a “clean slate.”

Jim

I think I’ll run the import, after I make an additional copy of my database and site files. Still need to know:

1) should I delete those other database tables Wor1 and Wor3061, before or after the import process?

2) what about the site backup file? When/how do I re-import that?

thx

Jim, it is hard to say whether you need to delete the other database references from wp-config.php or from your database server without taking a look at the site’s backend, the files in wp-content and database(s).

You can disable Jetpack by using cPanel (or FTP) to navigate to /wp-content/plugins/ and then to rename the ‘jetpack’ directory by adding an ‘x’ in front of the name.

Just a quick explanation of what those backup files are and of how WordPress functions:

I don’t know whether you are familiar with database programs like MS Access or LibreOffice Base. If you are, keep them in mind as I go through this explanation, otherwise bare with me and (I) hope you understand the general gist.

Think of WordPress as being like a database application. It has two graphical ends: the admin area and the public area. Only those given login access to the admin area ever get to see the admin area. Anyone can view the public part of the website (unless blocked or access is restricted).

We use the admin area to create content. We use the public part of the site – the front of the site that most people see in their web browsers – to view the content that site admins (editors & authors etc…) create.

Here is how this (WordPress) relates to MS Access/LibreOffice Base and other database programs: Think of the admin area as being the place where you perform data entry tasks and organise how that data is viewed by your site’s visitors. You have a form (where you create posts), you add text to that form and upload images (or other media) that is to be shown alongside the text.

WordPress adds HTML markup to the content you create. This is the purpose of the visual editor (TinyMCE): you add text then click buttons to make the text pretty; ditto for images.

So, how is all this text stored and how are all the media files stored?

The text and HTML markup is stored in a MySQL database (usually MySQL). This database is stored within your hosting space in a ‘database server’

The media files are stored in your hosting space on your web server. These files are not stored in your database server.

The database stores all the text, the HTML and – by virtue of the HTML – stores references to where your media files are stored on your web server.

The media files are stored in the directory ‘/wp-content/uploads/’, the plugins are stored in ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ and your theme files are stored in ‘/wp-content/themes/’. The common directory for your non core WordPress files is ‘/wp-content/’.

How does this relate to your question?

You have two backup files: one is an SQL file, one file is a zip file that contains all your uploaded media, plugin and theme files (this is the ‘non text’ part of your creative content).

To answer your question:

The file to import into phpMyAdmin is the SQL (database) file. This contains your text. The other file contains the media uploads. The media files should still be on your web server. I suspect your original database is also still on your web server.

Jan:

Followed instructions on “restore your database.” Got an error message that database already exists, cannot create database. Does this mean I should delete all three databases before importing the sql database file?

thx
Jim

Yes but please, please, please make sure that you have complete separate backups of the whole works as it is right now and keep that off of your server.

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

I’m reasonably sure and I think that leehodson may agree with me that it’s your database. But in case I’m completely wrong then that backup (make both file and complete database) will save you a ton of grief.

OK. Thanks for all the advice!

So I backed up my databases a second time, deleted them from “MySQL”, and used the restore procedure. The restore appeared to be successful, so I logged back into site to test. When I got to the “my installs” page, I could see both the old (WP 3.8.1) and new (WP 4.0) installs. I tried both, and could connect to the server, but it could not find the “cacheolo_wor3091” database.

So it appears that something in the installed WP 4.0 is pointing to cacheolo_wor3091, but that is not the database I want to install. It was created when I upgraded to WP 4.0. Instead, I want to install a previous, pre-upgrade database. The earlier database was restored, at least I saw it in phpMyAdmin following the restoration and before I tried logging back in.

It was the upgrade that wiped out my old site and put me into a series of Jetpack startup screens (someone said it might be because of a redirect plugin, but since I can’t acccess my old site, I can’t see what plugins might have been installed.

So…should I uninstall WP 4.0?

Should I try and restore the .tar file (the big one that has the enitre CPanel, files etc.)?

Any help would be appreciated.

thx
Jim

You seem to be going to an extra lot of trouble here for no real reason.

Can you see the data that your site should have in the database, somewhere? Anywhere at all.

If so, then all you really must do is to edit the wp-config.php file to point to that data. WordPress will use whatever set of data it’s told to use by the settings in that file. It’s not smart about it. It doesn’t look around for new sets of data. It just uses the configuration it’s given.

From what it sounds like, you didn’t so much upgrade the site as install a fresh new one. So, if you have you old data somewhere, then all you have to do is to edit the wp-config.php file to have the correct variables in it.

Otto:

The data tables were clearly there. We figured out how to open and edit the wp-config.php file. Changed the database so it was pointing to the one I want (the old one).

When I tried going in to my admin login page, it gave me the error message that it found the server, but could not select the database.

Also, when I compared the wp-config.php file in my site, with the file from my pre-catastrophe backup, the 4 main variables (DB_NAME, USER, PASSWORD, HOSTNAME) they are now exactly the same. Iss there something else I need to look at?

thx

Problem finally solved. I read many threads and tried many things. I think what was confusing was maybe mixing up database name and table names?

The combination that worked was for database name: database_table
and for DB user name: database_user name. I also had to go in MySQLdatabase and make sure I added my user name to the database.