So I was updating a category description last night, received an abrupt error (Server Internal Error 500). This was very surprising, something I've never seen happen. Because the change to the category description did not take, I went back and resubmitted.

Nervous, I decided to back up using DrByte's Database Backup Manager.

This morning I noticed that my backup file weighed less than half of what the other backups weigh! Another back up made in the morning yesterday before I began all the work weighed just over 1MB (all my other backups weigh about the same). But the one I made yesterday afternoon only weighed 324kb!

Thinking maybe last night's backup just did not complete or something, I rebacked up this morning. Same result, file 324kb. Since I always let it use gzip, the thought occurred to me that maybe gzip wasn't working before but now it is and that is why the file was smaller. So I rebacked up again, this time choosing "No Compression"... same result, file 324kb.

I have poked around on the client side of the web, all the products still seem to be in place. Everything seems normal. Only, my database seems to have gone on a massive diet.

I'm totally freaking out here! Does anybody have any ideas/suggestions for me? I don't want to continue working, only to find out critical things have gone missing and I have to revert, thus loosing even more time!