Repair/Reinstall MODx

Ok, this is probably the most basic of stupid questions, but I’m still a relative newbie and am afraid I will wreck the site I have a problem with if I get this wrong.

I have been trying to find a solution to a problem I’m having with a MODx install for the past few days with multiple questions in the forum, but no luck yet. So as a next step, I’d like to reinstall MODx without obviously losing my existing site. I don’t know SQL (with my hosting company, you create the SQL database through their control panel and it’s really easy. Have seen MySQL Admin with another hosting company and couldn’t get my head around it), so I am at a loss as to how I can back-up the correct files and then load them back up again after reinstalling MODx.

Haven’t been able to find any instructions other than "backup your SQL tables and reinstall them". Need more hand-holding than that I’m afraid. Thanks for any assistance!

Does your host have something like phpmyadmin in their control panel? If yes, you can use that to create a backup of your database.

Just go into phpmyadmin, click on the database you created to install MODx, and then click Export. Here’s an article that my help you with that: http://fragments.turtlemeat.com/mysql-database-backup-restore-phpmyadmin.php

Alternatively, if there’s no phpmyadmin, you need to find out what database management tool your host has installed on their control panel. You can always ask your host to create the database backup for you, just open a support ticket with them.

The other thing you want to backup is your site files just in case you need to restore them. You can do this using an FTP client like FireFTP on firefox, cuteFTP, winSCP, etc. Just google them. Your host should have sent you your FTP details when you created an account with them.

If you’re having a problem with your MODx install, one option to try before you do a complete reinstall is to install MODx in "upgrade" mode. This will preserve all your site content. Reupload the MODx files to your server just like you did the first time. Then navigate to the install folder. http://whateveryourdomainnameis/install

Follow the steps but make sure you select "Upgrade Existing Install" and then make sure that you DON’T select to install the sample site. This should restore MODx without erasing or interfering with your current website. But make sure you do backup your database and files as I described above before reuploading and upgrading.

Hope this helps!

Thank you sooo much, Mary! I am back up and running. I can hardly believe it!

I figured out how to get to MySQLAdmin from my hosting company’s control panel and thanks to the links you provided felt confident enough to works things out there. I had a .sql back-up generated from within MODx, but earlier didn’t know where to go from here. Also had FTP backup of my assets and manager folders. Anyway, I did an ’upgrade’ install as you suggested (its only a small thing, but I didn’t know I had to browse to the /install folder to do that - seems so obvious now, but thanks for putting it into your post). However, there was a problem with permission for the config.inc.php file for some reason. Changed the permissions and installed fine on second attempt, but somehow the sample site got in there and all my pages were wiped out! (I know for definite that it wasn’t ticked for the first run as it’s not ticked by default. Don’t know what happened during the second attempt?).

To cut a long story shorts, I started from scratch and got my backups in there somehow and everything is working fine - including the problems I tried to solve with the reinstall. So there’s a very happy girl going to sleep tonight!

A big thank you to you. And by the way, I learned everything I needed to know to start me off with MODx from your Codingpad page and just after Christmas went to visit my old web design course tutor to show her how I’ve been using MODx on my sites - passed on the links to your pages as recommended/essential reading for any Newbie. So thanks on that front also!

You’re most welcome! Glad you got it all working

Quote from: rivendell48 at Mar 07, 2010, 04:08 PM

Thank you sooo much, Mary! I am back up and running. I can hardly believe it!

I figured out how to get to MySQLAdmin from my hosting company’s control panel and thanks to the links you provided felt confident enough to works things out there. I had a .sql back-up generated from within MODx, but earlier didn’t know where to go from here. Also had FTP backup of my assets and manager folders. Anyway, I did an ’upgrade’ install as you suggested (its only a small thing, but I didn’t know I had to browse to the /install folder to do that - seems so obvious now, but thanks for putting it into your post). However, there was a problem with permission for the config.inc.php file for some reason. Changed the permissions and installed fine on second attempt, but somehow the sample site got in there and all my pages were wiped out! (I know for definite that it wasn’t ticked for the first run as it’s not ticked by default. Don’t know what happened during the second attempt?).

To cut a long story shorts, I started from scratch and got my backups in there somehow and everything is working fine - including the problems I tried to solve with the reinstall. So there’s a very happy girl going to sleep tonight!

A big thank you to you. And by the way, I learned everything I needed to know to start me off with MODx from your Codingpad page and just after Christmas went to visit my old web design course tutor to show her how I’ve been using MODx on my sites - passed on the links to your pages as recommended/essential reading for any Newbie. So thanks on that front also!