Can't restore my database. "You did not select any valid thread" !

[BlackHatSystem]

Hi mates,

I am new to Vbulletin and just purchased my licence. As I got a few problems with the "add profile fields" funcion which used to make my forum crash (I finally understood that my PHP version was too old to support VB 3.6), I thought it would be really useful to be able to export and then restore my database in case a similar issue would occur again !

I could export and import it successfully using several ways: export from admin cp AND from phpmyadmin, import by importing the full database, all the tables to an existing empty database, or by copying a database directly in phpmyadmin. I even made a backup and restored it "successfully" using mysqldumper php script.

All of these methods worked, and I am quite proud of it. Now I know how to export and restore my database following a few different ways...

Well not really proud actually. I still have a major issue when restoring my DB. After I restore it and configure my config.php file properly, everything is back to normal: forum, style, posts, users, statistics... EVERYTHING.

Except when I try to work again on the forum, I get error messages like "No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator" (I get this if I try to add a new post). However, the message is posted though. If I try to remove it from my admin account (user end, not from admin cp), I get this:
"You did not select any valid threads".

I really don't know what to do. I tried loads of things to fix this, but nothing worked...

Thank you for your help !

Kind regards,

Thomas

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Update forum and thread counters (AdminCP -> Maintenance -> Update Counters) and try with a default style.

[BlackHatSystem]

Thanks Marco,

I already did this, and it didn't change anything infortunately

I just don't get it...

Please help,

Thank you.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Did you verify that your backup was complete? (check the last lines of the export file).

The only reliable method of backing up and restoring a database is with shell access via telnet or ssh. This is because backing up with a PHP script like that in the Admin CP or phpMyAdmin can result in PHP timeouts errors and an incomplete backup file. Please see the instructions here:

Backup:
http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/m...nce_ssh_backup

Restore:
http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/m...ce_ssh_restore

[BlackHatSystem]

Thanks again Marco.

Yes my backups are complete (my forum is very new, the database is almost blank!):

"-- EOB - End of backup" this is at the end of my backups.

I already checked these topics many times. Unfortunately, I don't have access to SSH/Telnet.

I just asked my host to restore my database for me on my test forum. Hope it will work although I don't think the problem comes from phpmyadmin

Is there a way I can send you my database backup so that you try to restore it on a test server ? This way we could know if the problem comes from the backup itself (the way I save the database) or from the way I restore it.

Thanks a lot !

Thomas

[Marco van Herwaarden]

If the backup is restored completly and you use the same software version of vBulletin, then the new restored board should work without problems (only will need to update the Forum URL in your vBulletin Options if new URL).

You could PM me a link to this backup on a FTP or something, but i doubt i will be able to help if the backup is complete.

[BlackHatSystem]

Hi marco.

Yes I used the same version, and the backup was restored completely. But the board did not work although all the data was properly restored (users, posts, style, threads etc...).

Thanks a lot anyway, I could fix this issue. I contacted my host and requested that they restore my database via SSH (as I dont have access to SSH/telnet).

They copied the database backup towards a new database as requested so that I can test it. The problem does not appear anymore. I will probably never know why my database backup only partially worked when restored with phpmyadmin/myphpdumper, but anyway it works with SSH.

Thanks !