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Without giving me the exact messages you saw I can't help you, I can only make assumptions.

> I restored the last backup taken just before installing the plugin, and then it gave me an error message saying something about host error.

Without the exact error message I have no idea what you saw and what it means. Something may or may not have worked which may or may not be a problem. That's all I can tell you without an error message.

> are there logs for restoration?

No. They would be overwritten on restoration since we're replacing all the files, right?

> It also said that the size of the dataabase is 80mg (size of backup archive is 2.5gb.

The backup archive consist of the installation script, a copy of your database as a number of SQL files and your site's files. By definition, the backup archive will be bigger than the size of a compressed dump of your site's database in SQL format.

Also, the message probably told you something along the lines that the maximum row size of a single table in the database is 80MiB, not that the entire database is 80MiB. We do not have anything which can report the size of your database as this is a meaningless number. What is the size of a database? The size of the SQL dump? The size on disk? The size of data without the additional information MySQL/MariaDB keep to maintain their structure? All of these numbers are equally correct and wrong and all of these are equally meaningless.

The maximum size of a single row, however, is relevant to the restoration. If your database server does not allow a SQL command of equal or greater size to be sent to it (“maximum packet size”) the restoration of the database will fail. That's why we report it if it's over 1MiB.

> I freaked out and then went to my site - which showed the angie restoration... which then restored the site properly.

Based on this I would say that at least most of your backup archive was extracted, at the very least the beginning of it which contains the restoration script and the copy of your database. Since the site restored properly I would also say that whatever unspecified error or warning or message you received earlier is unlikely to cause any problem.

> Also, the plugin was still sitting disabled - i assume that is normal?

Yes. Restoring a backup does not remove files. The plugin's files are still there, therefore WordPress shows it as “deactivated”. Deleting the plugin will get rid of these files.

> further more.. the back up i took just before installing the plugin was only 488 mg NOT the usual 2.5GB!!!

Does the backup profile you used include everything or do you exclude files and database data in it? Is it possible that the actual size of your site's backups should be about half a gigabyte but your previous backups were backing up old backups? How long is a piece of string?! This is basically the kind of question you are asking. I can't answer it as I do not know anything about your site and how your backups are set up — but you do.

My answer to what would happen after the error message depends on what was the error message that's why I could not address it. I still can't for the same reason :) Generally speaking, stealth mode only affects other people (actually: other IP addresses) visiting your site while the extraction and restoration is in progress. It does not affect what you see and what happens when you talk to your site through your browser unless your IP changes in the middle of the process. That's why I am a bit skeptical about the error you got.

Anyway, let's move on to the question we might actually be able to answer: the size discrepancy.

I am pretty sure the size discrepancy is down to something big in the previous backups which shouldn't be there. Can you get me both logs in a ZIP file, please? I want to make sure that a. both backups are complete (they should be, they report as such), b. whether there are any big, unnecessary files in the huge backup and c. whether anything was skipped in the smaller backup.

I am making this ticket private because I am about to talk about files on your site. Let's keep that out of the public eye.

The log file gives me a lot of big files:

• wp-content/plugins.zip - size: 99096545 (!)
• wp-content/uploads/mailster/GeoIPCity.dat - size: 20539238 (OK, you need that, I am not counting it)
• wp-content/ai1wm-backups/pharmacysos.com.au-20201002-052026-t20gzg.wpress - size: 736941230 (!!!)
• wp-content/ai1wm-backups/pharmacysos.com.au-20190614-060951-637.wpress - size: 865914157 (!!!)
• tmp/Joomla_3.8.5-Stable-Update_Package.zip - size: 11938243 (Joomla?!!)
• tmp/Joomla_3.7.5-Stable-Update_Package.zip - size: 11512164 (Joomla?!!)

So, from a quick glance we have 1725402339 bytes, or 1.61 GiB of trash.

Between that and some database cleaning you could easily end up with a backup that's 2GiB smaller. It doesn't have all the garbage you were dragging with you.

PS: About the ZIP and our site... It looks like there is a problem with Joomla 4 losing the settings for custom media management settings. I will look into that...

> Now for the databases - i deleted a few i am almost sure i don't need.... will test for now.

If you deleted databases then yes, they are not being backed up. Only the database your site is in is backed up.

If you deleted database tables it depends. If the tables were empty the change in the backup archive would be in the order a few hundred bytes to a couple of Kilobytes which is is in the order of 0.001 MiB — well under the rounding limit for two decimals.

> Please check i have set this up properly, because it is these databases with the whole website files that i need....

> on restoration or migration... will i then get the fields to enter user names and passwords for BOTH data bases (i only remember seeing one before)...

> also i just read this so will delete the main dbase and only keep the extra one, although i left all configurations blank in the configuration page for the main database.... which i assume akeeba will figure out which is the main database from the wpconfig file.

With this change it's not correct.

> i can not upload the log!!! its 16mg

You need to put it in a ZIP file first. You cannot upload .php files here. If you cannot attach it you can always upload it somewhere, e.g. Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive etc, and paste a share link here.

Sorry, typo! I meant “with this change it's NOW correct”. Guess what happens when I mistype “now” as ”noe”; yes, it's auto–corrected to “not” by the browser 🤦🏽‍♂️

You're welcome and my apologies again for the very confusing auto-uncorrected typo :)