Support

Last year I had a bad issue where I tried to upgrade my Joomla2.5x site to Joomla3x. It completely failed and when I tried to use my backup all I got was a big nasty, blue 404 screen. I had to use a 3rd party Joomla expert to restore the site.

I think something happened to my database during the upgrade.

I have noticed in the past that modules leave certain things in the database - even after they are removed. When I restore a backup using “backup type= full site backup” it seems it is using changes to the database even AFTER the backup date. (I had thought the backup would be IDENTICAL to the site at the time of the backup – even if you did things after the backup)

How can I make a full backup with a database with no later changes in it.
Should I also make a “main site database only – sql file” and use that for any restorations?

DT = a MySQL command that begins with the word "DROP" and ends with the word "TABLE" and that our our security will not let me use in a support ticket. :-(

When tables are restored from your backup, the DT command is used to remove the existing table during the restore. No records that were added to the table after the backup would survive the DT command.

If you add an extension to your site after your backup and that extension adds new tables to the database, the situation is very different. Since that new tables are not being restored, they are not dropped during the restore, they will still exist after the restore process. They will be "orphans" since Joomla! doesn't know they are there.

Files are handled in a similar manner. The files are not deleted, they are overwritten by the restore process. So if you have added new files to your site since the backup, they will still exist after the restore because there is nothing to overwrite them.

If you want to do a completely clean restore, you need to manually drop the tables from your database before the restore using a tool such as phpMyAdmin. You would also need to manually delete all the files from your site. (And be careful you don't delete your backup archives with the rest of the site!)

Thank you for clearing thing up.

So If I understand you correctly, only the original tables in the database get dropped and re-witten, and any later-extra ones are still there. The whole msql database did not get deleted - just the old data at the time of the backup.

So if I restored to a test site the restore would be "clean"? (I would have to create a new empty database for the test site first-correct?)

Is the "main site mysql data base" the same as the one in the backup?

If I thought my database had problems, could I restore the backup to a new database on my server?
Would that be a clean install? (After deleting the files - leaving archives alone)

That is correct, the tables are dropped prior to being restored, the database is never dropped.

Yes, if you restore to a new database you will only have the tables that are in the backup. That's a little bit redundant.

"Is the "main site mysql data base" the same as the one in the backup?" If you are referring to the backup configuration, the answer is "usually." Think about a site with a stand alone forum or a stand alone family tree program, the stand alone programs could have their data tables in a separate database. You would need to take extra steps to include those tables in your backup.

Generally a new database and an existing database with all its tables dropped will be the same. You might get into differences in the database collation in some circumstances.

Thank you very much – it makes sense now.

I have a few questions on backups I just did.

I have 2 sites, one an add on domain. I just made the change in the configuration to allow it to backup to Dropbox. On both sites, after the backup, I had the following error (attached image)
However, the backup still worked.

The main site had a backup on dropbox and no local copy. Joomal 2.5 site)
The add on domain had both the dropbox and local copy. (Joomla3x site)
The log file for the main site is attached.

What is causing the error?

Also, I see below on previous backups in backup manager, a kink to “Transfer Archive (dropbox)” – what is this used for. This was on backups before I finished setting up the dropbox with codes/keys etc.

Can you backup to local and dropbox at the same time?

The attachments did not come through, can you please retry? You will need to use two tickets or archive the attachments together because you can only attach one file per ticket.