Sometimes you start a task that you think is going to be easy. IT should take no more than 15 minutes – I figured I’d backup a database, download the WP-content directory, install a new wordpress installation, upload the WP-Content and import the new database.

It SOUNDS so damn easy, doesn’t it? Yeah, let me explain what I ran into.

All these sites I found mentioned exporting the database (select your database, and select all!)

Then I hit this error:

MYSQL 1044 error, giving me permissions errors. This blog said do the tables one at a time. Seriously? One at a time? I mean, they’re small -but I’m not interested in just saying “oh, I give up!” (Okay, I admit it, I almost did this, but I refused to do it until it was the last option, which it wasn’t).

My problem was I was selecting three databases – one of which was a default system generated one that I wasn’t paying attention to. So, as I stared blankly, continued studying for a midterm, and had a beer, before it struck me:

Maybe I should REVIEW the procedures! (Genius, right?) Backing Up Your WordPress Database and Restoring Your Database from a Backup – only thing, same error. Same problem.

So I had to step back and look at the problem that evidently plagues wordpress users (seriously, google it, a ton of people have had this problem). Evidently, everytime they try to idiot proof a process (a step-by-step approach) they make a better idiot (*cough*me*cough*).

My problem was that I was creating a backup of the entire database, which evidently freaked it out. By entering the database (so I was seeing a collection of tables on the export screen) I was able to select all the tables, export the DB, import it, and thuder lizards are go!

I swear, next time I do this, I’ll take more pictures.