Problem Restoring Backup, Possibly Wordpress Database Related

[David78751]

Hello, this question is primarily about a cPanel backup issue, but I mention Wordpress for the context of it.

I have experience with Wordpress and cPanel on a hosting service that has always worked fine, and recently agreed to help finish a Wordpress website someone had started on another hosting service. Wordpress had not been installed using "site software" (which I suppose is similar in function to Softaculous), but as normal the files were in a subdirectory of public_html, and there was a database for it.

I followed the directions to change the website url from the url/subdirectory to just the url, as I had done on previous Wordpress installations, but this time I got locked out, and could no longer access the login page. Without going into detail, the hosting service was no help with restoring the full backup. When it first didn't work, told me they'd fixed some permissions, which still didn't work, and then that the backup had been corrupted.

On extracting the backup file, it looks like the correct files and directory structure, but what I don't know is how the mysql database works with this. Is the database supposed to be included within the full backup? Is restoring the backup also supposed to restore the database? The backup software indicates that it would.

I think the solution is probably going to involve one or more Wordpress configuration files, but I already tried a couple things, and the results lead me to wonder whether the problem isn't in the restored files, but in the database. Unless of course, all the database files actually are already among the files from a full backup restoration.

Any guidance is appreciated.

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello

Is the backup that was provided to you a full cPanel backup? If so, restoring it should restore the databases. You should see a "mysql" directory when manually extracting the backup that includes the databases associated with the account.

Thank you.

 

[David78751]

I finally got it fixed today, and your response helped narrow down the problem for me. Thank you!

I still do not know what caused the problem in the first place, but it doesn't appear to have had anything to do with the backup file.

 

[cPanelMichael]

I'm happy to see the issue is now resolved. Thank you for updating us with the outcome.