phpBB :: Knowledge base - Viewing article Using phpMyAdmin to restore your phpBB database

Hello everyone!

If you’ve been using phpBB for very long, you know it’s a huge hassle to do database restores if your database backup is over 2MB. You’ve probably encountered the dreaded “No file uploaded” error even though you just uploaded it! No, it’s not a bug in phpBB but the way PHP is set up on most servers. By default, most servers have a pathetic 2MB maximum upload limit. The only practical way to get around this is to break your database backup into approximately 2MB chunks as described in this knowledge base article.

But what if your database backup is 50MB? You’d have to break it up into 25+ pieces. Sigh. You may be wondering, “There has to be a better way!” Well, today I’m going to show you one using phpMyAdmin’s little known import feature!

All you need for this tutorial is your own copy of phpMyAdmin, a free web-based front-end for MySQL and of course, your database backup. (Even if you already have access through your host to phpMyAdmin, you still need your own copy.) What? You don’t have phpMyAdmin?!? All the more reason to have your own copy! It’s on the “must have” list of software—like phpBB! Wink

This knowledge base article will show you how to set it up and how to perform database backup restorations. It will take the average user only about 10-20 minutes to complete. Ready? Let’s go!

Download the latest stable version of phpMyAdmin here.
Unzip it to your desktop. (You probably should rename the folder to something easier to remember, like phpmyadmin.)
Create a folder inside phpmyadmin called uploads.
Open the file config.inc.php with Microsoft WordPad (included with Windows).
Now you’ll need to set up just a few things.
1. Find $cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri'] = '';
  You’ll need to set this variable to wherever you will set up phpMyAdmin. For example, if you set it up at mysite.com/phpmyadmin/, then you will need to set $cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri'] = 'http://www.mysite.com/phpmyadmin/'; Be sure to note the trailing slash. It’s important!
2. Find $cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'localhost';
  You will need to set this variable to the same server name as in your forum’s config.php file—usually it’s localhost, but not always!
3. Find $cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'config';
  You need to change this variable to $cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'http';.
  This enables a prompt box for you to enter your database username and password.
4. Find $cfg['UploadDir'] = '';
  This is the line that does what we want to do. It tells phpMyAdmin where your database backup is. Set it to $cfg['UploadDir'] = './uploads';
Now, FTP the phpMyAdmin directory.
While you have your FTP program open, upload your database backup (important—as TXT/ASCII) to the uploads folder.
Go to mysite.com/phpmyadmin and enter your username and password.
Select your database and click the SQL tab. There should be web-server upload directory: option near the bottom of the page now.
Select your database backup, and depending on the size, your backup should be completed in a few seconds to a few minutes!

Note, to save space on your site, you may not want to upload ChangeLog, Documentation.html, Documentation.txt, and all languages in the lang folder EXCEPT english-iso-8559-1.inc.php and english-utf-8.inc.php.

Enjoy! Mr. Green