davegregg

Would it perhaps be easier to fix this if I start over from scratch from my backup of the original database?

Yes. I bought your ebook.

That original DB, by the way, still has the 2,880 tables if that matters.

This is my current wp-config.php file. Should the original WP DB be defined as DB_NAME?

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘prefix_wrd1’);
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘[user]’);
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘[password]’);
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8’);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);
require(‘db-settings.php’);

Also note that my original WordPress database has the same prefix as the new ones. Could that trip up the SharDB code?

My PHP error log may have discovered the initial cause: a plugin (Diamond MultiSite Widgets) was caching stuff. I’ve disabled that now. No change. I stepped back through the instructions, removing SharDB’s files and the addition to wp-config.php, and then redid them. But nothing I do causes “db.php” to appear in the Drop-ins list, the DB column appear in the Site List, or the SharDB Migration option appear in the Tools menu. How do I get SharDB working again? Would performing the table migration again work? If so, how can I get that option back? I’m at a loss, and unfortunately I’m a SQL & PHP novice.

My DB list looks like this by the way:

prefix_00
…
prefix_ff
prefix_global
prefix_home
prefix_wrd1 [the original database]
horde
mysql
phpmyadmin_[randomchars]
psa
sitebuilder5

Alright, yesterday I created a new blog, as you know. I also deleted two old test blogs, which you didn’t know. Today I logged back in and the two deleted blogs are back and the one I created yesterday is gone completely from the dashboard.

I also noticed that I no longer have the DB column in the site list. But ‘shardb-admin.php’ is still in the mu-plugins folder and I am logged in as the network admin.

‘db.php’ isn’t showing under the Drop-ins plugin section, though it’s been correctly placed in the wp-content folder.

Also, when I navigate to the site list, it loads slowly enough that I can watch the individual sites populate one by one.

I’m looking into the where I am the DB user.

Thanks! That worked instantly. Now onto using SharDB to make WP use multiple databases! THANK YOU!

Yes, that’s one of the few hundred subsites.

—-CONTENTS OF .HTACCESS FILE—-

# BEGIN WordPress

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

Cool. Many thanks, Andrea & Mika! You’ve been such a help to me! I’ll mark this topic resolved.

So am I going to experience an upper limit of tables per database at MediaTemple on a VPS?

Thanks Andrea & Mika for the help. I don’t think splitting up the DB will help until after we move to a VPS or dedicated server, because even if the tables are in multiple DBs, we still can’t have any more tables than we already do. Bluehost told me that the 3k table limit is account-wide, not per-database.

BUT I will need to use a solution like that once I move over to the VPS. Understanding that I don’t have a lot of experience with backend stuff, would you suggest SharDB, HyperDB, or Multi-DB for me? As long as I have documentation and maybe support, I think I’ll be able to bluff my way through it. I see now that SharDB has a manual now… didn’t know that. But just so you know I’m not very experienced with databases.

Though this is slightly off-topic, do you have a preferred beginner’s resource for learning SQL or MySQL?

Okay so I’m not going crazy. We just made a poor decision going with Bluehost. So, what’s a good VPS? I’ve been looking at HyperDB and Multi-DB. But we can’t clean out old blogs, unfortunately — if for no other reason than none of these blogs are currently older than two months. The stagnation comment is the trend I’ve seen with the blogs we’ve set up for our clients in the past, utilizing other services. This is the first time we’ve decided to manage a blogging option ourselves, rather than outsourcing it, as it were. So seeing as we’re building 100-200 blogs per month, is VPS going to be a solution that could last us a year or two?

THANK YOU. Perfect.