Recover data from crashed store?

**nathansu** · 24 Apr 2016, 01:40 PM

A while back, my store stopped working. I don't know what happened. One day a customer contacted me to ask why it was down - news to me. The main site page and admin page come up as completely blank now. I seem to recall at the time the pages that came up had a single string of characters across the top and that was it. I've since put up a page with the same address to offer visitors a signup form in case I ever get things back online. But it's possible to load the static_index.html page: http://pocketstudios.com/store-broken/static_index.html

I wondered if maybe my host (bluehost) upgraded the version of PHP they were running - if that might have been the cause - but never looked into it. It's a tiny side business, and I didn't have time to invest in troubleshooting.

Now, I have a customer that wants to put in a sizeable order, and I'm shocked and a little embarrassed to find that I don't have backups of things like the product descriptions.

Is there any way to recover these from the site? Ideally, I'd like to recover a list of all products and their descriptions, and a list of customers with as much info as possible.

I have access to the database through phpmyadmin and the site files through ftp.

Thanks in advance for any help!

**carlwhat** · 24 Apr 2016, 02:14 PM

all of that information is contained in your database. you can use phpMyadmin or some other tool to do a backup of the DB and then you will have all of the information that you are requesting.

considering your copyright is 2009, it is a good guess that your version of ZC is not compatible with the version of PHP. if you track down your version of ZC, its entirely possible you can configure your host to run a compatible version of PHP through a setting on your cpanel.

good luck!

**nathansu** · 24 Apr 2016, 04:43 PM

Thank you! Do you know if there's a guide to what's listed where in the sql file? I did do the export and have looked through it. But the product descriptions, for example, are split across several columns. Meaning, a single description is broken up into multiple columns. Wasn't sure if it might be more plainly listed elsewhere. I'm not very knowledgeable about sql/phpmyadmin, etc..

Unfortunately, it looks like my host (bluehost) doesn't give me tho option to change the php version through cpanel. They used to, but it seems to be gone now.

Originally Posted by carlwhat

all of that information is contained in your database. you can use phpMyadmin or some other tool to do a backup of the DB and then you will have all of the information that you are requesting.

considering your copyright is 2009, it is a good guess that your version of ZC is not compatible with the version of PHP. if you track down your version of ZC, its entirely possible you can configure your host to run a compatible version of PHP through a setting on your cpanel.

good luck!

**nathansu** · 24 Apr 2016, 04:49 PM

CORRECTION: Bluehost still has the option. It was tucked away somewhere. So I am running Zencart 1.3.8a, which BH notes is incompatible with PHP 5.4 and newer (5.4 is the oldest version they offer).

Should I just upgrade zencart? Is that an option?

Thanks so much for the help.

**mc12345678** · 24 Apr 2016, 06:03 PM

Yes upgrading your ZC version, preferably through the process outlined in the following link. BTW, ZC 1.5.5 is reported to function in a PHP environment that would also support ZC 1.3.8a, and a copy of ZC 1.3.8.a can be obtained from this website to review the changes made to the original store.

http://www.zen-cart.com/entry.php?3-...d-of-upgrading