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Database Error - Has My Blog Been Hacked?

by Sheryl Polomka
10 replies
The other day I went into one of my established sites and it was a blank page with this written on it:

Error establishing a database connection

I tried everything I could think of to fix it but couldn't and I ended up deleting the site and starting it again from scratch.

Now, I have just found it again on one of my other sites. Does anyone know why this message would appear? Are my sites being hacked?

Does anyone know how I can fix it without deleting it and starting over from scratch?
#blog #database #error #hacked
  • Profile picture of the author captivereef
    who is your webhost??
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  • Profile picture of the author Sheryl Polomka
    I'm with Hostgator, do you think I should contact them?
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    • Profile picture of the author scrofford
      Originally Posted by Sheryl Polomka View Post

      I'm with Hostgator, do you think I should contact them?
      Yeah I would contact them. It couldn't hurt and they can probably help you in figuring out the problem. Hostgator customer service is excellent!
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      • Profile picture of the author JennyDeen
        Originally Posted by scrofford View Post

        Yeah I would contact them. It couldn't hurt and they can probably help you in figuring out the problem. Hostgator customer service is excellent!
        I would second that. Use livechat to contact them. I have had various problems like that and I contacted them and they were so absolutely extremely helpful.
        Jackie
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  • Profile picture of the author khtm
    If you didn't setup the database yourself and aren't sure how to troubleshoot this problem....it's probably best that you contact your host and see what they have to say about it.

    I think it's a big assumption at this point to think that it's been hacked

    Good luck! Hosting issues can be frustrating!
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  • Profile picture of the author Rezbi
    It's possible it was an error on their part (I've had similar things happen with another host) and they should be able to just transfer everything to your old domain.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sheryl Polomka
    yeah I'll do that, I have a lot of sites hosted and so far that is 2 that this has happened too, hopefully there aren't anymore and hopefully it might be something easily fixed.

    Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Gama Seva
    Originally Posted by Sheryl Polomka View Post

    The other day I went into one of my established sites and it was a blank page with this written on it:

    Error establishing a database connection

    I tried everything I could think of to fix it but couldn't and I ended up deleting the site and starting it again from scratch.

    Now, I have just found it again on one of my other sites. Does anyone know why this message would appear? Are my sites being hacked?

    Does anyone know how I can fix it without deleting it and starting over from scratch?
    There's a big possibility that you updated your blog to a new version but got interrupted...

    If that's the case then the database got messed up.

    Just login to your cpanel and find your way to phpMySQL and backup the database and export it to .zip format.

    Now, reinstall your blog and import the old database.

    Hope that helps.

    Gama
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  • Profile picture of the author OnlineProfitDevil
    Is your blog WordPress? It would mean your config file needs to be edited, more than likely, it may have been upgraded incorrectly.

    If not WP, then it's likely a similar problem...all it really means is that the connection information (username, password) that the blog uses is missing or wrong. It's very unlikely a hack job.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sheryl Polomka
    Thanks guys, I spent an hour on live chat with Hostgator and they were very helpful. Unfortunately, we couldn't save one of the sites. It was really weird but although these 2 sites were both working perfectly in the past, somehow now they are showing to be using the same database.

    I have no idea how it happened.

    Hostgator got me to change the config files which got rid of the original database error, but then the site was redirecting to the other site, when we tried to change the url in the phpmyadmin then the other site started redirecting to this one. It was really weird. In the end we salvaged one site but had to delete the other one.

    Thankfully it was a reasonably new site and it's not a huge issue to start it over again.
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