Before any kind souls spend any time on this... I seem to have fixed the problem. I assumed that the blank wiki meant that my database had been cleared. Actually, I somehow stupidly swapped the wiki database name and the wiki username in the install set up, so I got a new blank database with a new user!

The original database was still there, so I took the opportunity to do another backup via phpmyadmin (this time checking "Drop Tables" under structure, just to make sure I had a full backup. Then I ran the install again (with the correct database and wiki usernames) and all went well.

The only problem that I have remaining is that all of the images are missing. I'm assuming specifying some path somewhere will correct that (and that hopefully all the uploaded images are still there!).

On 5/20/06, CheekyGeek cheekygeek@gmail.com wrote:

Following the directions pointed to (thanks for that link) I ran into some problems. First of all, I locked the database from changes by removing the wiki-user's INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE privileges. However, the instructions do not tell you when you need to restore the wiki-user's privileges. I realized this when,during the install process, things seemed to be going well but ran into an error message part way through that seemed to indicate something the wiki-user was unable to do. So, I restored the wiki-user's INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE privileges and ran the install process again. Instead of the messages I got before (that tables were found...good...etc.) I just got the instant "your wiki is setup" message. Now I have a blank fresh wiki.

I'm not sure what I did wrong but the bottom line is that I need to restore from my wiki backup.sql. However, (next problem) the backup.sql looks a wee bit incomplete. For one thing it is missing the " ### DATABASE DUMP COMPLETED ###" message at the end. The good news is that it seems to have the INSERT commands for all of the tables (ending after a long list of "INSERT INTO `watchlist` VALUES"). However, when I try to restore using phpmyadmin (using the SQL tab and browsing to the file - hitting GO) I get a "No SQL Query!".

So questions 1 & 2: does it appear that my backup file is incomplete? And if so, can I add the text to the end to make it appear complete (because it looks like almost all of it is there). If someone could look at the end of their mediawiki's dump and tell me what comes after the "INSERT INTO `watchlist` VALUES", I'd greatly appreciate it.

I also tried to restore from the command line using: *mysql -u rootuser -prootpw mywiki **< /tmp/__DB__mywiki.sql*

but I get a "Can't create database 'mywiki_db'; database exists" message no matter whether I'm trying to restore the database of the original name or a new blank (no tables) database that I created with a different name.

As you can probably tell, I'm not a real MySQL or mediawiki guru. : (

If I can make the backup.sql file valid by adding whatever it needs at the end and figure out the correct procedure for restoring it, I'm assuming I can make another run at the upgrade.

Thanks in advance to any who take pity on this poor soul.