Database migration/overwriting issue

  • Hello, fellow WordPress developers!

    I’m going to start off with saying one thing. I’m a complete beginner with WordPress. I have never touched it before, all the information I have gathered up until this point is just me frustratingly digging through Google for answers.

    I’m having some database migration issues for a WordPress site I’m doing for a client. Basically I’m moving the entire installation with the database from one hosting provider to another, but I forgot to export the .XML file before I transferred the domain, so the old database got wiped before I managed to export it. But I managed to pull out an .sql package of the database from the old hosting provider, but I can’t seem to figure out how to import/inject that database to my new WordPress installation.

    Usually I could just pull a WXR file from the old theme installation, but when the old agency delivered me the files they forgot to supply me with the database. So right now I’m stuck with the raw stack of information from the database that I somehow need to run on the old installation with the old theme, on a new server at my new hosting provider.

    Is there a possibility of overwriting a default database on a fresh installation, or replacing a default database with the one I have? Because right now I have the old theme running on the new domain, but I don’t know how to hook up the data that used to be there. I managed to pull out three different formats of the database. one .sql package, one CSV package and one XML package.

    Any and all help is greatly appreciated!
    //@onordbo

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  • Hi,

    Yes, you can migrate your old database to a new install of WordPress. There are a couple ways to do it, both of which can use the .sql file.

    First, if you have access to PHPMyAdmin:

    1. Click on the database on the far left. It will have a title corresponding to the new WordPress install.
    2. About halfway down the page, click “check all” so that all tables are selected. Then, select “drop” from the dropdown menu.

    Something to note about PHPMyAdmin. There is a size limit on databases, and this differs from host to host. Commonly, it is 8MB, and if the file is bigger than that, then the import will fail. It depends on the host whether or not they will either up this limit temporarily, or do the import for you, or whether you will have to do this through the shell, assuming you have that access.

    3. Click “yes” to confirm.
    4. Click the “import” tab.
    6. Click “choose file”.
    7. Find the database file (the .sql file).
    8. click go, located at the bottom of the page.

    There is an article on the Codex entitled “Moving WordPress” that will provide more info should you have to use shell to do the import.

    Hope this helps,

    Amanda

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
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