How to Fix WordPress Database Errors

Looking for ways to repair your WordPress database? 🤔

WordPress database requires troubleshooting and repair when encountering the following errors:

• "Error establishing a database connection"
• "No update required, your database is already up to date"
• "Warning: require_once(path/to/file.php) {function.require-once}: failed to open stream: No such file or directory..."

Other signs of database problems include sudden, unexplained changes to your website, such as missing content and images, frequent plugin failures, and the inability to upload images.

Database issues occur due to incorrect database credentials, corrupted files, website hacking, and exceeding PHP memory limits.

👉 In this article, we’ll briefly cover common causes and then show you how to repair your WordPress database.

Let’s dig a little deeper.

Common causes of WordPress database corruption

There are a number of reasons why your WordPress database files may become corrupted or damaged. The most common reasons include:

1. Server Issues
2. Database Credentials Issue
3. Database table corruption
4. Hacked Websites

Database Tables in phpMyAdmin

1. Server issues

The errors you find on your website are probably because the website cannot connect to your hosting server. The server takes too long to respond or is completely unresponsive. Unfortunately, server problems are common with cheap hosting services.

Some hosting services also use separate servers to store the website's files and database. In these configurations, even if the database server goes down, the website's file server can still work normally.

2. Database credential issues

You can access your WordPress database using your database credentials. These credentials are stored in the wp-config.php file. If that file has been tampered with, the credentials may have been changed or removed from the file.

Therefore, the issues you are facing on your WordPress site might be caused by incorrect database credentials.

If you have recently migrated your WordPress site from one host to another , database credentials issues may also arise.

3. Database table corruption

The WordPress database consists of tables that store your website’s data. Although databases are as powerful as any other technology system, they can malfunction and become corrupted.

Table corruption may result in data loss, which may cause parts of your website's content and images to be lost.

4. Website hacked

Database corruption and modification of database credentials in the wp-config.php file can be signs that your website has been hacked.

After hackers break into a WordPress website, they often tamper with files and databases, use website resources to store illegal files and folders, or launch attacks on other websites.

These are the most common causes of database corruption. In the next section, you will learn how to repair your WordPress database and have your website up and running in no time.

How to Prepare to Repair Your WordPress Database

There are many ways to repair your WordPress database. But before you start the solution, there are two key steps you need to perform.

First, you need to backup your entire website and then enable error logs in your wp-config.php file to find the exact reason for database corruption. Before learning how to repair WordPress database, let’s dive into the steps.

1. Backing up your WordPress site
2. Enable error logging to find out the cause

1. Back up your WordPress site

In order to fix database problems, you will be taking steps that may harm your website.

For example, you will access phpMyAdmin to automatically repair your database. A small mistake in phpMyAdmin can lead to big trouble. It may eventually bring your website down.

Backups are a safety net. When something goes wrong, you can simply restore your backup and try another solution.

If your hosting provider has a reliable backup tool, this is usually the best place to start. Alternatively, you can back up your site manually.

2. Enable error logging to find out the cause

As we said before, there are many reasons why your WordPress website database may be corrupted. To repair your database, you first need to understand the exact cause. The best way to do this is to check the WordPress error log in the wp-config file.

The wp-config.php file is a core WordPress file that contains configuration details for your site as well as database credentials. This file can be used as a debugging tool. It can generate log errors that you can review to determine if a plugin, theme, or something else is causing issues with your site.

To access the wp-config file, open your hosting account and go to cPanel and select File Manager .

If your host does not offer cPanel, you can also connect to your server using FTP.

In the File Manager, go to public_html → wp-config.php . Right-click the file and select Edit .

Edit the wp-config file in the Public_html folder

Scroll down and insert the following code snippet above this sentence:

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */
define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );03.define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );

The first line enables debug mode, and the second line ensures that error logs are stored in the debug.log file.

You may find that the code already exists, but debug mode is set to false. In this case, you can simply change the existing code to true.

Enable debug logging in wp-config.php

Turn on the debug file, which will show you all the warnings and errors your site encounters. Once you've identified the real problem, you can jump to the relevant solution below to repair your database.

However, if you are unable to interpret the error message and are unable to determine the exact cause of database corruption, we recommend that you try the following solutions one by one.

How to Repair WordPress Database

Now that you have completed the preliminary steps, you can begin repairing your database.

The first step is to make sure that the database credentials you are using are correct. Once that is done, you can proceed with the other steps to repair the corrupted database.

1. Check your WordPress database credentials
2. Repairing WordPress Database Using a Plugin
3. Using the built-in WordPress database repair tool
4. Repairing the database in phpMyAdmin
5. Repairing the Database Using WP-CLI

1. Check your WordPress database credentials

One of the most common reasons for errors in establishing a database connection is incorrect database credentials in the wp-config.php file. Database credentials include the following:

• Database Name
• user
• password
• Hostname

You need to check that your database credentials in your wp-config.php file are correct.

You will find the database credentials for your site in MySQL Databases.

If your host uses cPanel, you can access your MySQL databases via **cPanel → MySQL Databases . **If your host does not use cPanel, you will need to consult your host's documentation.

If your MySQL database does not show credentials, then you will need to find the email you received from your hosting provider when you first set up your hosting account. This will include your database name, user, password, and hostname.

But if you cannot find the email, then the only thing to do is to contact your hosting support and ask them to find your credentials for you.

Alternatively, you can also create a new database user and assign it to the database. You can then add the credentials for that user to the wp-config.php file.

Once you have the credentials, open your hosting account again and go to cPanel → public_html → wp-config.php . Next, open the file and match the credentials. If the credentials are incorrect, edit the file and add the correct credentials.

Database credentials in the wp-config file

📌 If this doesn't fix the issue, you will need to continue and follow the steps to repair your database.

2. Repair your WordPress database using a plugin (if you have dashboard access)

If you still have access to your backend WordPress dashboard, you can use a plugin to repair your database.

However, if you don’t have access to your WordPress dashboard, then you’ll need to skip to the next section to look at some database repair options that don’t require dashboard access.

Advanced Database Cleaner and WP-DBManager are two popular database repair plugins. You can install either of them to repair your database.

Advanced Database Cleaner

WordPress.org plugins page

Advanced Database Cleaner

WordPress.org plugins page

WP-DB Manager

If you have installed Advanced Database Cleaner on your website, go to WP DB Cleaner on the dashboard menu and open the Tables tab.

Next, **select all the tables and choose **Repair from the drop-down menu and click the Apply button.

Repairing the database in Advanced Database Cleaner

If you have already installed WP-DBManager, go to Database → Repair Database , on the next page, scroll down and click on the Repair button.

Repair your database in WP DB Cleaner

3. Use the built-in WordPress database repair tool

WordPress also includes its own built-in database repair tool to help you repair a corrupted WordPress database.

However, to access it, you first need to enable it manually by editing the wp-config.php file using the cPanel File Manager or FTP .

Open the file and add the following code snippet above the line :

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */
define ('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true);

Next, open this URL : . https://example.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.phpBe sure to replace it with example.comthe actual URL of your site.

After pressing enter, you will be taken to the database repair page, and you will have two options to choose from:

1. Repair Database
2. Repair and optimize database

The latter is more efficient but takes longer. If you want to get your site up and running as quickly as possible, choose the former. Otherwise, we recommend that you choose the latter so that you can optimize database performance at the same time.

⚠️IMPORTANT : Once the database repair process is complete, return to your wp-config.php file and delete the line of code you added. Do not leave the database repair tool active after you have finished using it.

4. Repair the database in phpMyAdmin

You can choose to automate the repair process using phpMyAdmin. Simply go to cPanel → phpMyAdmin and select the database you want to repair.

Select a database in phpMyAdmin

Next, click on the Check All option and select Repair Table from the Choose What drop-down menu . The database table will begin repairing itself.

Repair Database option in phpMyAdmin

5. Repair your database using WP-CLI

If you are a developer and have command line access to your WordPress installation (and your server has WP-CLI enabled), then you can use the wp db repair command to repair your database.

That’s all, folks. 😎 By now you should have fixed your database. If you’re still experiencing issues with your website, then you’ll need to seek professional help from your hosting service.

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