overwritten wordpress

February 12, 2009 4:29 AM

A friend of mine upgraded a wordpress installation by simply uploading the new wp-files in place of the existing installation. Now the index page says 'Error establishing a database connection'. What can i do to reestablish the site?
posted by FidelDonson to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Does the wp-config.php file still hold the correct details? That would be the first thing I'd check.
posted by Lionel d'Lion at 4:31 AM on February 12, 2009

Yes, even though the new WP versions don't come with a pre-made wp-config.php file anymore, if he simply deleted all the old wp-files first, the configuration file will be missing.
posted by ijsbrand at 4:43 AM on February 12, 2009

Also, silly question, did he visit his admin page to see if a DB upgrade was necessary?

From the WP Upgrade instructions:

Step 2: Upgrade your installation
Visit your main WordPress admin page at /wp-admin. You may be asked to login again. If a database upgrade is necessary at this point, WordPress will detect it and give you a link to a URL like http://example.com/wordpress/wp-admin/upgrade.php. Follow that link and follow the instructions. This will update your database to be compatible with the latest code. If you fail to do this step, your blog might look funny.
posted by generichuman at 4:43 AM on February 12, 2009

yep, the file y'all want is wp-conig. Use a program like textwrangler to connect to your server, and then edit ONLY the database connections. You just need to reconnect, right? you will need the server address, the login name, and the password for the DATABASE (its' usually different than FTP settings).
posted by eHegwer at 5:22 AM on February 12, 2009