database error?

[bartolomeu]

Something funky going on at my boards and I can't figure it out.

I changed servers recently after about a month of use and did the regular database dump to .csv file.  When I tried to upload and import the database into the new server I got errors during the "messages" table.  I tried both "data" and "data and structure" dumps into empty databases and structured databases and had no luck.  I ended up just dumping everything but messages, uploading, then dumping messages and uploading everything I could with the error.

All said I had about half my messages restored from prior board.  Well the problem now is:

1) Topic and Posts numbers are inaccurate
2) Randomly when someone replys or starts a new post somewhere else in the board (entirely different categories even) up pops blank messages.

Is this just a database problem?  If it is I will just clear the messages table, but how do I reset board count totals.  The "recount board totals" in the admin section doesn't seem to calculate correctly.

I'm reading thru that PHP book you guys recommended so I can read PHP code pretty well now, so if there is something I need to fix in the code just gimmie some pointers.  If it's MySQL related, well, I'm still mostly an idiot when it comes to that (although PHPAdmin thing makes it fairly easy it seems).  But I'm always willing to mess something up for the sake of learning  

[Jeff Lewis]

That's weird, try using the repair option and see how that goes...

[bartolomeu]

hmmm... repair comes up with no errors.  Board recount fixes any negative numbers but the empty threads remain.

*scratches his head*  ...ghost in the machine...

[bartolomeu]

actually two of em.

the tables that begin with log_ can be safely cleared correct?

in the messages table, what do the columns ID_MSG and ID_TOPIC actually represent in terms of messages on the board?  should these all be sequential in some way?  If sorted by ID_MSG it stays barely sequential but then jumps from 91 to 135 and again from 138 to 167.

Okay I figured out what ID_MSG and ID_TOPIC are.

I think one of these Log_ tables or errors in the messages table may be the culprit of my problem.

edit: just went through and manually changed "topic" values for each board to be correct.  Some boards were reporting improper values.  waiting to see if this changes anything, but I'm still curious about the above questions.

Just noticed something else in the database.  In the topics table ID_TOPIC displays some fields with -1 in the replys column, and when crossreferenced into messages table these TOPICS do not exist at all.

If someone wants to take a peek at my database I'll be happy to email you the username, password, and link to the PHPAdmin at my server.

[bartolomeu]

Bug seems fixed.  I got some help in PHP scripting forum and deleted all the "topics" with a "-1" in the replies field, recounted the board and everything appears solid.  even loaded up a few mods and things a smoothe.

[Jeff Lewis]

Good news!