T U T O R I A L S E R I E S

Restore your database

WordPress 2.x.x uses a cache file. You MUST delete the cache or this will not appear to have worked.
Delete everything in the /wp-content/cache directory before you upload the new files and before you do the following restore.

Where are you restoring to ?

Restoring could involve changing the backup file you have. To guard against damage, make a copy of it on your computer now.

If you have moved to a new host and you have a new database, do Step ONE

If you are restoring into the same database, do Step TWO

Step ONE

All you need to do is create the database, nothing else. Remember that your wp-config.php file must have all the correct details in too or when you try your blog you will get an error. Go to Step THREE.

Step TWO

Restoring into your existing database means that you must first delete everything in there. PLEASE be sure that this really is a necessary step, and check that you really do have a full backup of your WordPress tables.
There is no 'undo' function !!

You need to DROP all WordPress tables in your database to make room for the restore.

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You will then see

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Click Yes IF YOU ARE SURE.

Your database is now empty. Go to Step THREE

Step THREE

The actual import.

Click the name of your database, then the SQL tab

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There are 2 ways to get your data in:

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A - You can open the .sql file and paste the contents into the window OR
B - You can use that button to locate the file on your computer and upload it.
READ THIS ! If your .sql file is less than about 3meg in size, you will probably be fine with either method.
If your .sql file is larger, you can try the upload but you may get timeout errors. This is NOT the fault of WordPress - it is a host setting. If you have your own server you can change the settings. If you cannot alter that, and you get timeouts, you will have to do the following;

Open the .sql file in a text editor. Do NOT use a word-processor, or Dreamweaver or GoLive unless you REALLY know what you are doing - on a Windows machine WordPad is okay.
You will see something similar to this at the top:

-- phpMyAdmin SQL Dump
-- version 2.6.1-pl2
-- http://www.phpmyadmin.net
--
-- Host: localhost
-- Generation Time: Jun 24, 2005 at 05:14 PM
-- Server version: 4.0.24
-- PHP Version: 4.3.11
--
-- Database: `tamba2_data`
--
CREATE DATABASE `tamba2_data`;
USE tamba2_data;

-- --------------------------------------------------------

Ignore all that. You do not need it.
Everything else in that file needs copying and pasting into the SQL window. You highlight some text, copy it, paste it into the SQL window, click Go and after the Success message, you do it again with the next chunk of text.
It can take a while, and you need to be careful that you miss no lines out.

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If after moving everything you get a blank page when looking at your blog, check your themes. A faulty theme file will cause this blank page. Try changing themes or uploading a new theme then changing to it.

If this does not help, check that all the WordPress files are present and are the correct size. Download a new set of WordPress files if needed and use your ftp client to do this.

From experience, there are a number of things which can mess things up when restoring and while nothing is fatal to your data it's very complicated to describe here.
If you run into trouble, make a post to the Support Forums. If you email me directly for help with this, I will NOT assist unless I have full access to complete the import - it is too long and complex to do any other way, including by IM.