Entire Database dropped – How to restore from XML backup?

  • Hello everyone,

    A friend, who is an absolute computer novice, inherited the administration of a wordpress website. He quickly proved how bad of an idea that was by bringing it crashing down, and he enlisted my help. Mind you, I’m not exactly a professional either, just comfortable enough to mess around in Ubuntu, google solutions and try to figure stuff out, I have no experience in wordpress.

    So, here’s what he did: He installed Adminer, and dropped the entire database.

    Now, thankfully, there was an automatic weekly backup so there is an XML backup file that is only 2 days old, but neither he, nor I, have any idea how/what to use to log in order to restore it, since the url of the site now reads only “Forbidden. You don’t have permission to access /wp-admin/install.php on this server.”

    Any assistance you could give, even if it is just pointing me to a bunch of tutorials would be greatly appreciated.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • How was the backup taken and what is that xml file a back up?

    If it’s of the database you’ll need to sign into your MySQL installation and import it to restore the database.

    If this is an XML backup of the site contents then you’ll need to re-install WordPress from scratch (that will recreate the database) and then import this file.

    David.

    Thread Starter robertburns42

    (@robertburns42)

    It’s a large file, 22.5 MB, so I believe it’s the entire database…

    It begins:
    —
    <database name=’x-x-x-x’>
    <table name=’0_bp_activity’>
    <column name=’id’>1</column>
    <column name=’user_id’>1</column>
    <column name=’component’>members</column>
    <column name=’type’>last_activity</column>
    <column name=’action’></column>
    <column name=’content’></column>
    <column name=’primary_link’></column>
    <column name=’item_id’>0</column>
    <column name=’secondary_item_id’ null=’null’></column>
    <column name=’date_recorded’>2015-03-10 14:13:22</column>
    <column name=’hide_sitewide’>0</column>
    <column name=’mptt_left’>0</column>
    <column name=’mptt_right’>0</column>
    <column name=’is_spam’>0</column>
    </table>
    —
    I should have been clearer, I have no idea about website management, so I have no tools installed or anything. Usually I pick the basics up pretty fast, but I’d appreciate a push in the right direction.

    Ah, well, this is where we’re going to struggle on a WordPress forum as how this is managed is down to your hosting. I’d speak nicely to your host who should be able to give you access to any backend-managements tool there are.

    Hopefully you’ll be able to gain access to something such as phpMyAdmin, which is a handy visual utility for managing MySQL databases. From there it should be pretty straightforward as it gives you the option to import backups.

    David.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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