Categories disappeared

MY client was adding a category and a subcat. then decided to delete the category. From what she told me, the same thing she had done many times before, she deleted the unwanted category and every category on the website was deleted, i checked the DB and it was true, an empty cat. table. What could have caused this and what do i do?

First, restore the back up of the Database. Second, what version of Zen Cart is being used?

version is 1.30 and i am not to sure how to put backup back in. Also backup is quite old so lesson learned. I downloaded a .sql copy of DB and it is just one lone file of text. I only want to put the categories back in PLUS since the back up loads of other stuff has been added but they were not deleted so if i upload .sql file will it effect the stuff added after?

It is strange she had a category i think she added sub cat in it then she clicked on the red cross to delete the cat after, something she had done many times and there were no yellow linked boxes to say products linked and when the sinlge cat selected to delete ALL were deleted, she is not impressed. could it be something or someone doing this or is there a problem, has this happened before or has she clicked on something by accident to link them all, i dont know but I need to know so i can make sure it doesnt happen again...

Help...

Paul

Contact your Hoster and explain your backup problem. They might have a recent backup they can provide, from before the db changes were made.

Also, Kim has that 'tutorials' link in her posts for a reason. :wink2:

Hosting cant help, they back up but dont help individual sites, for mass backup if server problems i guess. Any thought on my issues??

Good thing our hosting site does not follow those practices ... or we would be doomed ... :cry:

I have a backup .sql file, thouh it is quite old but better than nothing. If i upload this backup will it mess with anything that was added after the backup was made, will it wipe everything and use the new upload or will it just add the additional entries. I have added the module for saving from db now, can i add the .sql file this way or must i go via the phpmyadmin panel

I only want to add the categories from this .sql file because that is all that is missing when the problem occured and i dont know how it happened. Still a mystery, this is what the person it happened to said:

"I was going to build a new category with sub categories….I put in the new category as I always do…gave it a title and then I added two sub categories as I have done so many times.

I went to the live shop to press the refresh button to see if it appeared as I wanted…didn’t have to press the refresh button as it had already appeared…mmmm…

I went back into admin and deleted the sub categories…successfully…as I have done before and then I clicked on the delete button for the category I had created…It came up with message …are you sure you want to delete this category…I clicked delete and everything dis-appeared before my very eyes…That is how I recollect the events leading up to this mystery…"

Does anyone have any ideas, the site is https://www.edenspirit.co.uk if you need to look.

Please advise, i cant have this happening again

Paul

A mySQL database is nothing more than a text file in structured format. This means you can open with any Text Editor -- do not use a WordProcessor!

The following is highly unorthodox but 'may' help with your situation.

Download your current db
Open current db and previous db in a Text Editor
In both files, find this beginning: -- Table structure for table categories
In previous db file, copy everything from beginning to this line: -- Table structure for table configuration
In current db file highlight the same beginning and ending, replace (Paste) with code from previous db
Save and upload

Make sure you have an unaltered backup of your current db, in case the above does not work.

Rob's right. You'll have to do the same with the 'categories_description' table too.

Couldn't edit my earlier post but for the sake of clarity, wanted to point out that by copying / pasting everthing inbetween:

Table structure for table categories and Table structure for table configuration

you grab both TABLEs for 'catagory', including 'categories_description'.

Cheers guys

I had a lovely bit of fun doing this (not). It took a while and i tidied the file up a bit to make it readable but in the end once i could find the category and product lines I salvaged about half the lost products, rest was lost due to it being old saved file. But my fear is to what the hell happened in the first place, only the categories disappeared. I am thinking foul play, and passwords have now been changed for everything, and lesson learned about backing up stuff. But do you have any ideas how every category could be deleted from what she did or is it a security issue??

Any thouhts appreciated, oviously i dont want this happening again

Cheers
Paul

You may just have to chalk this up as one of life's little mysteries. :wacko:

As the problem started from someone who was legitimately logged into the Admin section, I highly doubt it is a security issue.

Silver lining is the importance of "regular" backups has been confirmed.