On a site (WordPress 2.8.2) I was receiving strange empty comment moderation requests:
A new comment on the post # "" is waiting for your approval
Author : (IP: , )
E-mail :
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=
Comment:Approve it: (blanked)
Delete it: etc.
As I logged in I decided to upgrade to WordPress 2.8.4 and I also upgraded the plugins without any problems.
Only then did I take a look at the comments.
The "Posts" tab showed the number of comments for every post but the "Comments" tab showed 0 comments.
In fact all my comments were lost.
I went to check the database with phpMyAdmin and looked at the table
"wp_comments". It had reportedly crashed.
I do not have much experience with databases and such but I decided to drop the table and replace it with a backup.
From my backup .sql file I copied the part:
# --------------------------------------------------------
# Table: wp_comments
# --------------------------------------------------------
until:
#
# End of data contents of table wp_comments
# --------------------------------------------------------
Then I ran this SQL code in phpMyAdmin which restored the comments in my blog.
I have no idea if it is caused by a hacker, an error in the hosting or an error in WordPress or the upgrade.
I wonder if anyone has had a similar experience. Just wanted to share this so it may help you one day.