Support » Fixing WordPress » All posts have vanished

  • Something went bad wrong with our blog. First errors were web server errors the the blog got to its current state where it comes up with latest story not found. Looking around in the control panel all comment are shown. All 34k+ of them. But control panel shows 0 posts. Zip.

    First does anyone have a way to see if the Posts are still there any maybe a pointer or counter is off.

    Or anything else I can look at?

    Blog is at <thewartburgwatch.com>.
    Theme is magazine basic.

    Thanks

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 24 total)
  • Appears to be gone. I would check database to make sure though.

    Thread Starter raleighthings

    (@raleighthings)

    I don’t know how. I fairly computer literate but not when it comes to WordPress under the hood issues.

    Thread Starter raleighthings

    (@raleighthings)

    Just to be clear. I’m willing to dig in to try and recover the over 1000 posts that the comments go with but I don’t know where any guides to the needed knowledge would be located.

    All should be in the database.

    Have you tried:
    – deactivating all plugins (yes, all) to see if this resolves the problem. If this works, re-activate the plugins one by one until you find the problematic plugin(s). If you can’t get into your admin dashboard, try resetting the plugins folder by FTP or PhpMyAdmin. Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems.
    – switching to the Twenty Eleven theme to rule out any theme-specific problems.

    Thread Starter raleighthings

    (@raleighthings)

    Thanks but neither worked.

    First errors were web server errors

    Your site is hosted by GoDaddy. I added them to the tags and expect they will check in here soon. You might want to call them direct to see what is happening on their end.

    Thread Starter raleighthings

    (@raleighthings)

    Called Godaddy before posting here. Basically they said not their problem.

    On a flight for next 3.5 hours. Appreciate the help. Will look deeper when I’m on a decent connection and a display bigger than this iPhone. 🙂

    Thread Starter raleighthings

    (@raleighthings)

    Can someone point me to a guide to looking into the data base to see if the posts are still there. And then details about why they might not be showing up.

    TIA

    Thread Starter raleighthings

    (@raleighthings)

    Went in with PhpMyAdmin.

    On the first page with all the tables shown the wp_posts table is the only one with no details show. Just a line that says “in use”.

    So I figured I’d see what I could export. The export generated an HTML page that PhpMyAdmin put up as source in a window. This line in it seems key.

    #144 – Table ‘./the0936205551865/wp_posts’ is marked as crashed and last (automatic?) repair failed

    Any idea of what I can do next or am I totally hosed?

    TIA

    Sorry it took me so long to jump in here 🙂 Long weekend and all…

    Judging by the website which appears to be working properly, my guess is that you did whatever it took to get this resolved. I wanted to reply anyway in case you see something like this again, or if anyone else comes across this thread.

    You mentioned that you found a table showing “in use” and that you got a message stating that the wp_posts table had crashed. There’s a very simple way to fix this if you’re already in phpMyAdmin:

    If you’re not already on the page where you see the tables listed, here’s a reminder of how to get there. From the phpMyAdmin homepage, click on your database name on the left (there’s probably two listed, “information_schema” and your database… don’t mess with the information_schema on). It should display a list of all the WordPress tables, including the the one that shows as “in use”. Once you’re on that page, all you have to do is check the box next to the line for the table that is listed as “in use”, and select the “Repair table” option from the drop-down window at the bottom of that page. phpMyAdmin will immediately perform that operation, and presuming there’s no other failure, the page will refresh and the table will be in a normal status again.

    Hope that helps!

    Alon

    Thread Starter raleighthings

    (@raleighthings)

    OK. Now I have to ask; Why is it working?

    I didn’t do anything. And Godaddy’s official support had told me it wasn’t GD’s problem.

    Thanks for the pointer on how to reset a table.

    When this first started GD said “not our problem” but read the rest here.

    Last night I was fairly confident I could put things back if I could reset the table and restore it from a copy I had off line. I asked GD support via their forms how to reset the table. The answer was:
    Thank you for contacting Online Support. It appears that you are having problems with your database for thewartburgwatch.com. We have generated a backup of the database for you. The wp_posts is too large to repair so you will need to edit locally and then restore to the database.

    I went to bed. Now today I have your, Alon’s, comment here and the table seems to be fully restored.

    What the heck is going on? I’m somewhat afraid to open up the blog again to posts and comments until I understand what is up.

    I’m not ungrateful but the stories are not making sense.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    On the first page with all the tables shown the wp_posts table is the only one with no details show. Just a line that says “in use”.

    That was the problem right there. Generally running a repair via phpMyAdmin will fix it.

    Thread Starter raleighthings

    (@raleighthings)

    I understand that now. But what with all the comments from GD about it not being their issue and they could not fix it and since I didn’t do the repair who did?

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    When they restored the DB from backup, they replaced it with a copy that didn’t have the problem.

    I suspect GD said they couldn’t help because of this:

    The wp_posts is too large to repair so you will need to edit locally and then restore to the database.

    That’s interesting, and I wish they’d said ‘we can’t’ rather than ‘It’s not us.’ It was your DB on their servers. While they weren’t at fault (these things happen), it’s frustrating and, IMO, a poor support experience. Even at 34k posts, I’ve run repairs on pretty big tables (I have a 400meg DB, it’s got some killer tables). Still, there’s a little bit you can do to help keep your DB size smaller.

    First in your wp-config.php, add this:

    define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3);

    Put it above the ‘stop editing here’ line and it will restrict WP to fewer revisions, thus keeping your DB smaller.

    Now, make a backup of your whole Database before you go any further 🙂

    You can run this code (from Lester Chan) in phpMyAdmin to clean up all your old revisions:

    DELETE a,b,c
    FROM wp_posts a
    LEFT JOIN wp_term_relationships b ON (a.ID = b.object_id)
    LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta c ON (a.ID = c.post_id)
    WHERE a.post_type = 'revision'

    Finally optimize the tables via phpMyAdmin, and you should have a (somewhat) smaller DB, which will make repairs more possible.

    Oh and at 34k posts, you may need to upgrade to a bigger server anyway. Depends on the traffic, but that’s a lot to query.

    Thread Starter raleighthings

    (@raleighthings)

    When they restored the DB from backup, they replaced it with a copy that didn’t have the problem.

    The problem I have is they said they GENERATED a backup for me.

    We have generated a backup of the database for you.

    To me this means the opposite of restore. Or am I dense?

    Yes I plan to make a full backup now. But the OCD in me wants to know what really happened compared to the statements from GD that don’t make sense. Otherwise I feel I’m walking into a trap.

    Oh, well.

    PS: Only 1700+ posts, but 34K+ comments.

    Thanks for the input.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 24 total)
  • The topic ‘All posts have vanished’ is closed to new replies.