My site recently got hacked. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn’t have any real-time alerts so my only way of finding out was from a Google email notification as I had registered with Google Webmasters (recommend you do the same).

I had found that the hackers had accessed my WordPress blog and database and added redirects to another site involved with essay writing – go figure! It makes absolutely no sense and from what I could see was doing nothing other than redirecting to another site.

Luckily, I keep full directory backups, and database backups, every time I do a full version update of WordPress and the last backup I had was December ’16. I had only posted one additional post and made some minor changes since then (I’ve been slacking).

Everything would have been relatively straight forward had phpMyAdmin displayed a logical error message when trying to import an oversized SQL file (70+Mb). After much deliberation I decided to set up a local install using a MAMP stack, courtesy of Bitnami, to try and work out why the database wasn’t importing. Voila, on my test site everything imported without any problems.

I then took to HostGator who actually have a page explaining what to do with oversized databases (here) and a section called Your import file is too large! under common issues! So I got on their webchat and 15 minutes later they had imported the database successfully back in situe. Unfortunately unless I pay more for hosting (at the minute I’ve an account on the Whitecherry / Frantik reseller package) I will need to get in touch directly every time I want to import a database over  50Mb.

I’d like to do a shoutout to WPBeginner and their following page – http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/beginners-guide-how-to-restore-wordpress-from-backup/ – it’s a little outdated but the principles remain the same.