ToddChitt

Back to Jay_wpo’s original post question about what is stored and where:
Yes, media content for the Azure web site is stored on the Azure servers, BUT, and I found this out by poking around, if you install one of any several WP plugins for ‘photo gallery’ stuff, the plugin creates and interfaces with several tables in the ClearDB database. The inclusion of photos in my gallery, for me, is what caused my ClearDB database to get bloated beyond the 20 Meg limit.

On a side note, after having my site crash and burn, and after re-creating it from backups because restore to a larger ClearDB database hosed everything up, ClearDB NOW (just like two weeks after my episode) supports in-place upgrade from free (Mercury) plan to larger, paid, database capacity. Go figure :/

OH, and not all the plugins work with an Azure SQL database back-end, even if you install the database abstraction layer plugin. I know because I tried, asked some plugin authors and that is what they told me.

Kevin: I’m willing to bet it was the inclusion of another domain that caused the problems for you.

Hey R Skoon:
I initially missed the key phrase “…in 2 places…” in your hack first time around. Also, not sure that it matters, but I set up a Linked Resource pointing to the SQL Azure DB in the Azure Site Configuration, along with a Connection String.

I’m now able to get past the Upgrade Database dialog and log in with my credentials. I have restored the site but now must add all the plugins and port some data over from MySQL to Azure. Shouldn’t be too hard for an old database guy like me.

Thanks!

This is frustrating. Frustrated that there is NOT a native gallery of WordPress that JUST WORKS with SQL Azure. Frustrated that I have to hack a plug-in to get it to work. Frustrated that I don’t understand all this stuff.

Whenever I try to update my SQL Azure based site from 3.something to 4.2.2, I get stuck in an infinite loop of “Database Update Required”/”Update Complete” then get locked out. Only chance is to restore from backup.

Anyone got this TOTALLY figured out yet?

*ANY* help is appreciated!

Hello Jay:
Hope you get this post. I too have WordPress hosted on Azure with a ClearDB back-end which is filling up. ClearDB tells me there is no UPGRADE path to upsize my database, and that I need to create a new one and port everything over.
Questions:
How do I accomplish this? Can I do a backup and restore in ClearDB? If so how? Other options?
Second, where is the connection string in WordPress that points to my ClearDB database? I don’t see anything in the Dashboard Settings. Is it buried in a file somewhere?

Thanks in advance.