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[actorschecklist]

Hello,

About 2 months ago my Coppermine gallery was corrupted probably by spam bots to render it useless and only to show a blank screen with an error message. I have been advised by my hosting company to deinstall it and reinstall the new version since I was having trouble updating the corrupted 1.3 version into the current 1.4 version. Since uninstalling the older version would wipe out pertinent data already saved in the database and albums I want to know what information (beyond the albums) should I save to an external file to add it to the gallery once it is up and running. Also, is there any particular way in which this should be added (installed) to the new gallery.

Thank you for your time

Paul

[Joachim Müller]

Wiping an old install and then installing from scratch is not a bright idea - you will loose everything. Instead, do as suggested in the upgrade instructions in our documentation. If your gallery has been flooded by spam-bots you may want to empty (not delete) the comments table.
Your question clearly is not related to uploading but upgrading, so I'm moving your thread accordingly.

[actorschecklist]

I hear what you are saying. Believe me I did not want to do it this way but the hosting company suggested I approach it like this after I was having problems reinstalling the upgrade. It's now a done deal, but I did back up the "albums" directory, "include" directory, and "anyconent.php" file as was specified in the upgrade documentation. I also did copy the entire coppermine to a different directory of the hosted platform where it would be safe from the "uninstall" feature, though not all files may have been transferred.

Will I be able to restore functionality to the photo gallery as it was before this happened? Please advise.

Thanks

PM

[Joachim Müller]

If you have a database backup available as well: yes. If you don't have one: no, unless you know your way around.

[actorschecklist]

What will the database file be called? And if I do have all the required files will all I have to do to restore them is to drag them into the familiar folders and overwrite the newly updated ones?

[Joachim Müller]

The database is not a file. Database dumps (backup files) will be named as you named them when you created them - there is no default name.

[actorschecklist]

Okay, here's what happened. I ran the latest upgrade version of Coppermine and it rebuilt the gallery. But of course it is now an empty gallery because the old one was uninstalled. Then what I attempted to do is to drag and drop back into place the include/config.inc.php file, anycontent.php file, the albums directory, and the sql directory which I figured contained the database files, but still nothing happened. You could view this at: http://actorschecklist.com/coppermine/ if you wish to or have the time.

What have I missed here? Did I need to run the upgrade function after having those files and directories inserted? Even if the Mysql files are the right ones why doesn't the rest of the gallery show up? Also, I do believe I have the backup for the sql database which I must have dumped at another time called "coppermine.sql". If you could help me out with some answers and direction to get the gallery working again I would appreciate it.

[Joachim Müller]

But of course it is now an empty gallery because the old one was uninstalled

Why? Why did you uninstall? Did you read the documentation, upgrade section? You're not suzppossed to uninstall anything. You're just suppossed to download the package, unzip it and upload the contents to your server, overwriting the existing files there. Then you run upgrade.php and that's it.

Then what I attempted to do is to drag and drop back into place the include/config.inc.php file, anycontent.php file, the albums directory, and the sql directory which I figured contained the database files, but still nothing happened.

How could you possibly drag and drop stuff around? After all, that was just wishfull thinking. As I already told you: those files don't contain the content of your gallery - the database contains it. If you uninstalled, you wiped out the old gallery. You should have read the docs before doing such a strange thing as uninstzalling. Your assumption that the essence of coppermine was stored in files was just wrong.

Also, I do believe I have the backup for the sql database which I must have dumped at another time called "coppermine.sql".

If that dump files contains a full backup, you might be lucky - restore that dump and you should be fine.

If you could help me out with some answers and direction

Sure: always read the documentation before doing something as serious as uninstalling.

[actorschecklist]

Is there a particular way in which an sql backup file from a dump should be reinstalled? I have tried uploading it a couple of different ways and it has not restored my coppermine gallery at this point. Can anyone offer any suggestions.

Thanks

[Joachim Müller]

Look: I already told you that the files in coppermine's sql folder don't contain the essence of coppermine. If you're not refering to those files, but files that actually contain your database dump: they are just plain text files - the file extension doesn't matter at all. It could be .txt, it could be .sql, it could be .foobar as well. There must have been some method how you created that dump in the first place (be it phpMyAdmin, mySqlDumper or a similar app) that you used to create that dump. Use exactly that application on the new server to restore the database tables from the dump. In phpMyAdmin, you select the database that is suppossed to contain the restored tables in the left frame, then you click on the "sql"-tab in the right frame, then you click on the "browse" button, navigate to the file on your hard drive that contains the dump and select it, then you submit the form by clicking on "OK" and that should be it. In mySqlDumper, you use the navigation item "restore" and follow the instructions on the screen.
However: fiddling with the database can be tricky if you have absolutely no idea of what you're doing. So if I was in your shoes, I'd hire someone to do this for me or ask a friend who understands what all this is about.

[actorschecklist]

Yes, I'm referring to a file that's called "coppermine.sql" (the size of which is approximately 1.4 MB) that was generated when I orignally created a backup or "dump" with phpMyAdmin. I have uploaded it in the way you describe which was also pointed out in the phpMyAdmin documentation. It still seems to have no effect. Are there additional files that should be in place as well? Should the coppermine.sql file be in any particular format? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Joachim Müller]

As I can't have a look at the file I can't tell you what is init it, if it is correct, what needs fixing or changing. Asking here to have supporters look into this issue is way beyond of what you can expect from free support. I already posted advice that applies to you:

So if I was in your shoes, I'd hire someone to do this for me or ask a friend who understands what all this is about.