The original plan for this week’s post was to start testing Plugin Compatibility for WordPress 3.0, but that will have to wait a week.
The reason?
A plugin I found saved me from losing around four months worth of posts over at Dallas Sports Fans, where I am currently the managing editor.
Recently, Dallas Sports Fans suffered a database error that could have been disastrous if it wasn’t for the WordPress PlugIn WP-DBManager by Lester “GaMerZ” Chan. This plugin repaired the database, which saved DSF.
The Problem
As mentioned above the database for the blog had a small error that was causing problems with the dislpay of posts as well as problems with backend of Dallas Sports Fans. Posts weren’t displaying anywhere on the site except for their post pages or their exact URLs. This was a huge problem as people were unable to navigate the sports blog.
Another side effect of this database error was that I couldn’t edit any of the posts. All that showed up in the “edit posts” area was a message stating that no posts could be found.
Knowing that all of the post information for WordPress blogs are stored in the database, I decided to take a look and see if anything could be done to restore all of the posts to the blog.
Solution #1
The first thing I did was look for the most recent backup of the database that I had, and despite backing the database up regularly I could not find one that was less than two weeks old.
Realizing that a two week old version of the database would still cause the blog to lose a fair amount of posts, I wanted to find a better solution to the problem. I decided to create a new database and use a new backup of the site to see if that could provide a quick fix.
Well it didn’t, and I couldn’t even get in the database to look at the portions that had errors. This is when I decided to search the internet for solutions.
Solution #2
The Solution I found was a plugin by Lester “GaMerZ” Chan named WP-DBManager that does the following:
Manages your WordPress database. Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.
Figuring I had nothing to lose I crossed my fingers and pressed the repair database button.
Lo and behold, the database error had been repaired!
This Plug-In is the most in-depth database managing Plug-In that I have seen for WordPress, and it actually works as well.
WP-DBManager Information
- Lester “GaMerZ” Chan Personal Website
Link: Lester Chan.Net
Lester has a few other plugins, I recommend checking them out. - WP-DBManager Plugin Home Page
Link: WP-DBManager
This page offers FAQ and forum support for the plugin. - WP-DBManager WordPress Plugin Page
Link:WP-DBManager
This page has the installation instructions and other important information.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Great post, I’ll check out the WP-DB manager.