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 IMPORTANT! Please remember to ZIP and attach your backup log file. Without it we are unlikely to be able to help you with backup issues. Thank you! Not sure what you need right now but can get it if I know what and where to look.

On Friday I had just about finished developing my revised Joomla site using MAMP and only needed to update my users. I was told (elsewhere) that I should export my user table from my live site (with 60+ new users), rename my MAMP abcde_users table to old_abcde_users and then import the abcde_users. This appeared to work as i then had a full, current list of users. ** I had done an Akeeba Backup just prior to this process **

There was one notification next to each name in the user list in the site backend (MAMP) but further research said it was because of error reporting and not to worry. The site seemed to be functioning well.

I closed out of my (MAMP) backend and tried to log in again but had no success. (notice was: wrong username or password)... but I had not changed anything! Further search using phpmyadmin confirms all settings are as they were.

At least at that point I was getting a log in. The next time I tried to get to my site, either front end or back end I received the message;

"Error displaying the error page: Application Instantiation Error: Could not connect to MySQL."

I've spent the weekend trying to figure this one out... to no avail. Oddly my old live site is also showing this message and I have neither a live nor localhost site. I have a Siteground account with the intent of moving my new site there and closing my GoDaddy account.

Please: what are my best options for moving forward, given what I have explained above, and probably more importantly that I have a current Akeeba Backup in hand? Should I try and reinstall here locally? or, should I upload my Akeeba backup file and Kickstart to Siteground and go from there? Is there an easy fix for my connection to MySQL error problem, and what would have caused that in the first place? If there is an error log I can send please let me know where I can find it and I'll send it through.

Hi Nicholas
Thanks for the very prompt and informative reply.
I definitely was advised to only transfer the #_users table... nothing else... there were 4 tables that appeared to be associated with the #_users table and I wondered about them but not being familiar with MySQL didn't realize their ultimate importance.
I can't think of anything I did to the configuration.php file unless it was in one of the options I clicked (again, unwittingly as I was led to believe the export/import process would be a simple one - obviously not simple enough for this newb).
I'll go back over the videos and docs on using kickstart and restoration of the site before proceeding with restoring my site with my backup.
I'm not sure I understand fully what you mean with the first • point above ... ie... what am I actually emptying? and where?
Thankfully I have a Joomla htaccess.txt file that I can transfer to my .htaccess file... Should I do this prior to doing the restoring of my site with the akeeba backup / kickstart?
I don't believe have an .htpasswd file in my admin folder... but will check

After I go through that I hope to be smiling! Thanks for your help.

yup... great picture! :)

thanks Nicholas... I'm much better with videos and pictures it seems. read through the docs several more times last night and also watched the restore video a couple more times... just to be absolutely clear as to the steps I need to take to restore my site.


On the second reading last night I came across this in the Extract Wizard section...

"When you are ready just click on Extract and the extraction takes place. You will see the Extraction Progress bar fill up as each file is being extracted. eXtract Wizard will let you know when the extraction is complete.



After the archive is extracted you end up with a bunch of files and folders. In order to proceed with your site's restoration you need to place them to your server's web root.



If you are using a local server (WAMPServer, XAMPP, MAMP, Zend Server, etc) just move those files in the subdirectory of the web root of your local server where you want your local copy of the site to exist using Windows Explorer (Windows), Finder (Mac OS X), Nautilus (Ubuntu Linux) and so on. Access the restoration script from your browser as http://localhost/your_directory/installation/index.php where your_directory is the name of the subdirectory of the web root where you copied the files. On some local servers you may want to replace localhost with something like localhost:8888 (default MAMP settings) or localhost:10088 (default Zend Server settings)."

I really do apologize for what must seem like very basic questions here... but:
• should I be using eXtract Wizard or Kickstart for restoring on my new, but broken, localhost site (lets call it abc1 for reference)?
• I am also unclear about where I place these files...
- a) if using Kickstart do I place both the .jpa backup file and kickstart in the htdocs folder or within abc1? when I then fill in the info as per the photo you included above do I fill in abc1 for my site name, and my old username and password in the SuperUser section below that?
- b) if using extract Wizard where do I extract those files specifically? It says in the docs "Extract to folder

Use the button to the right of the text box to open a directory selection dialog. Use it to locate the folder you want to extract the backup archive to and double click on it." but is that, say on my desktop for extraction purposes initially, then... do I move the entire folder with my site (is that what it will be?) to htdocs so that it will overwrite abc1?

I guess those are my two main questions before proceeding with the restore.
thanks again for your assistance... Dan

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