Restoring lost database indexes
One major problem was that the backup and restore utilities failed to restore the indexes on database tables. This is a serious problem! Performance was insanely bad, yes, but more importantly, the various dynamic sites that I host were crippled — comments, articles, and new data in general couldn’t be inserted into the database because the primary keys were messed up (read: gone).
For each database, I backed up and restored manually through the phpMyAdmin interface. I logged into the old server, selected the domain that had a database, clicked the Databases button, selected a database, then clicked “DB WebAdmin”. In the new window, in the right pane, towards the bottom, is the Export button — click that. At the bottom of the page check the “Save as file” box, and check the “gzipped” selector. Click Go. Save the database backup file that the server provides.
Next log into the new server, and go to the DB WebAdmin page for that database again. The database will have already been migrated, and thus will be present on the new server, albeit in its crippled state. In the new window, in the left pane, directly under the four navigation icons is the name of the database — click that. This will show you a list of tables in your database. Click “Check All” under the list of database tables. Then, from the “With selected…” drop-down list, choose “Drop”. Yes, you want to drop the database tables. Once the tables are dropped, click the Import tab at the top of the right pane. Click “Browse…” and choose the database backup file you just saved from the old server. Then click “Go”. If you have an exceptionally large database, you may be prompted to do this a couple of times as the server would time-out eventually (resuming from the last inserted record). This happened with one of my more data intensive domains. It was a painful wait for that database, although the rest were very quick and worked without a hitch.
This full database restore recreated the indexes and restored things to their working state.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Pete // Mar 4, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I am facing this exact problem right now. Upgrading to Fedora Core 7 on a Virtual Go Daddy Server. I know nothing about this stuff at all and I’m thinking I should just forget it. I cannot have things screwed up for 3 months, or even 3 days. I just became aware of the Fedora change option and I do not want to do it. I will stick with the old Fedora 4 thank you very much. I have spent too much time manually finding and changing the “PHP ON” areas of the server code and that was beyond a nightmare. As for starting over with a new server and migrating…. I can’t remember all the stuff I have to migrate. There must be a better way, and why must we change the operating system in the first place?
Terminal codes, shell codes, FTP codes… what’s a regular person to do? Go Daddy should offer a per incident support fee for BIG trouble items like this, not leave us all hanging like Chads in the wind. I give them a 0/10 for this fiasco!
2 Time to ditch GoDaddy? // Mar 12, 2008 at 10:34 pm
[…] a GoDaddy VPS customer, and amateur tutorial author and reviewer, this upset me, so I wrote a note on GoDaddy’s public relations feedback […]
3 DrewryNewsNetwork // Oct 26, 2010 at 10:55 am
Hopefully, everything you said will help me upgrade my server, in making php & mysql 5 work on the VPS!
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