Database Wiped…

  • I’ve got a 10 year old site, that automatically updated to the most recent WordPress on the 15th June. To start off with I got the white screen of death and couldn’t access the admin either. So I disabled all the plugins. No luck. Set the site back to the default theme, no luck. Uploaded a new copy of WordPress via FTP. Followed the manual update process, no luck.

    Deleted the .htaccess file and the site worked, but it looked like a fresh install with no content apart from the default page and hello world.

    I checked the database and it was a fresh install with no hint or indication that it wasn’t a brand new site, 3mb down to 470k. All 10 years of posts and content were gone with only a few of them recoverable via Google Cache.

    I don’t have a back up, but it’s not the end of the world. I just wanted to know was this a freak occurrence or has this ever happened to anyone else?

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  • Deleted the .htaccess file and the site worked, but it looked like a fresh install with no content apart from the default page and hello world.

    There were probably some rewrite rules in there that were pointing to your site and no longer are.

    Are you sure you are looking at the correct database? This should not happen with a WordPress update. WordPress occasionally has to update the database after an update, but it shouldn’t wipe it.

    I suppose it’s possible that you had some malware on there that did this, but that wouldn be an odd thing for malware to do. In general, it wants to stay hidden.

    Check with your host to see if they have a recent backup they could put in place for you.

    Yes, this is a freak occurrence. Please keep us informed with what you find out.

    Just a side-note,

    I hope you manage to fix the issue and that your database is fine.

    However, if the the database turns out to be wiped, run your domain through the internet archive as you are more likely to find more of your old content there.

    Thread Starter theApe

    (@theape)

    Yep, it’s the correct database. No unusual rewrite rule, all that was there were WP-Super Cache records, which I thought was maybe continuing to causing the white page problem as I’d disabled the plugin as a first port of call on the issue. This was my thought until I notice the database reset. The date of the sample posts on the new blog correspond to the date that the auto-upgrade happened and that’s also the date my upgraded core files are marked. So everything is pointing to an issue with the upgrade, maybe there was a conflict with one of the plugins being used on the site. The site was connected to a Jetpack account, do you think that’ll be able to give me anymore insight into the issue?

    I did grab a load of the written content from Google Cache and all of the images were still accessible via the FTP account.

    If I’m the only one this has happened to, I’m going to chalk this up to… shit happens!

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