It’s no understatement to suggest that your database is almost the most crucial part of your website. After all, nearly every piece of data lives here. As such, when your site breaks, there’s only one place to look first. The problem could be that you need to repair the WordPress database.
Because it’s a vital cog in your site’s wheel, your database takes more work to fix than other aspects of WordPress. In most cases, you’ll need to open up WordPress’ core files and tinker with settings within. What’s more, you’ll often have to work with the database itself to put things right again. The good news is you likely have all the tools and skills you need to carry out a fix.
For this post, we’re going to show you how to repair your WordPress database, through three different methods. We’ll also touch on some related errors and what to do in those situations too.
The Impact of Your Database on Your WordPress Website
There’s no part of your WordPress website that has more of an impact than your database. Almost every piece of data on your site lives here, and the code that links everything has to make sure requests and queries run fast.
In fact, it’s fair to say that your site’s speed relies on your database in a big way. This isn’t surprising once you understand how the database works with WordPress, and how powerful one can be. After all, there are experts in managing databases who make a comfortable living. This should show you how complex even a simple database can be.
For more on what the database means for your WordPress website, you’ll want to read our post on working with databases, and how to run Structured Query Language (SQL) requests. This should give you enough working knowledge to navigate around your own database.
Why You Sometimes Need to Repair the Database
Because there are lots of moving parts to a WordPress database, it’s inevitable that two cogs will grind to a halt sometimes. There are a handful of reasons to repair your WordPress database, although some are more common than others. For example:
- Incorrect database credentials are the biggest reason for errors, and this is the first aspect you should check out.
- You may also see a PHP memory limit issue, which relates to your database but is a separate issue in itself. This doesn’t take much to fix, compared to deeper repairs.
- There will also be simple connection problems to content with, although this might be more about your choice of host than anything you’re doing wrong.
While these situations will crop up a lot, there are also a bunch of more serious issues that need immediate attention:
- Corrupted files within your WordPress installation, or corrupted database ‘tables’. Either, of course, is critical to fix.
- Malicious users have breached your site – hacked, in other words. This is obviously beyond the realms of fixing your database and going about your day. If you suspect this, stop reading this
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This article was written by Tom Rankin and originally published on WPKube.