GoDaddy Unexpected Database Changes

GoDaddy seems to have moved some servers unexpectedly. A number of my web sites (WordPress) all went offline.

I wasn’t sure of what the cause was when noticed – I couldn’t remember all those database passwords to get into PHPmyAdmin to figure out what was going on and GoDaddy has no contact mechanism now except calling them over long distance (and waiting a long time on your dime). But, here was the fix.

Once I got home to the machine I do technical things on I was able to load in the database file for WordPress; wp-config.php, you’ll see a statement like this:

define('DB_HOST', 'some.server.address.com');

This needs to be compared to the database location filed in GoDaddy.com, navigate to “manage” your hosting services, click on the databases, and a list of databases is displayed.  Scroll through to find the right one (if not sure, compare the database name to a line where this is specified in the same wp-config.php file), and click on it to open up the details page for that database.

There is a button on the top right that shows code samples for referencing the database. You should cut and paste the server value out of here into the define statement above, then replace the server file with this edited copy of wp-config.php.

A lot of WordPress details shift over time, so this information might get stale.  But, The database connection string is a fundamental piece of a WordPress site and they have been consistent about this being in wp-config.php as long as I’ve been using WordPress, so this info should help quickly fix the database in the future.

Side issue, my GoDaddy services are an affordable solution but no Email capability for support is pretty weak.

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