admin problems after upgrade

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 7:07 am

With many thanks to evaders99, the other day I upgraded a nuke install from 6.0 to the latest 7.9. I had no errors thruout all the steps and to the casual viewer the site looks fine.

One thing I soon noticed tho was if I tried to post a new story, it would not save, also the modules admin section did not show all the modules properly and many of the specifics such as topic, etc. had underlines in front of them and no data boxes.

I was however able to edit a message to include on the front page.

I started looking on the web for info how maybe to fix the problem and kept coming across posts regarding post-hacking cleanup. I started snooping around in the database (after the obligitory optimise database both in nuke and checking/repairing in cpanel) and backing up the database.

My site was hacked in February and I deleted the rogue admin but he had not deleted me (I have an old protector in there) so I hadnt deleted the the authors table data and created a new god admin (didnt know to do this then anyway)

Anway in the database in phpmyadmin in the authors table I came across multiple indexes that phpmyadmin had noted as errors. there were also dupliicates in many of table that were showing errors.

I tried to delete the author table data (but not the table itself) in phpmyadmin but it would not let me delete all the data rows without deleting the table itself, I deleted all but the bottom row, admlanguage and tried to see if I couldcreate a new god admin with no luck.

I found the emptyadmins.php script and ran it, then deleted the browser cookies and now I cant log in, I am presented with the new admin creation after I create the new admin I am presented with the create admin again, in a nutshell I cant get in.

I decided to go back to square one and restored my nuke backup database from Cpanel but in phpmyadmin the authors table is still empty except the admlanguage row at the bottom. and I still cant log in...

I am flumoxed and frustrated at this point, thankful the site is still live on the web but kind of held hostage as far as adding new content to the site.

HELP!!!

thanks
RH

Site Admin Joined: Aug 17, 2003 Posts: 12403

Not really sure what you mean by "still empty except the admlanguage row at the bottom"

Either the table is empty, or it is not. "admlanguage" is just a field in that table.

Post the structure of your authors table here please

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:19 am

here is a screen grab of that author table as it presently exists:

http://www.rrhobbs.com/authors_table.jpg

its definitely not empty, my point was I dont know how to get rid of that admlanguage field, sorry if I wasnt clear.

thx
RH

Site Admin Joined: Aug 17, 2003 Posts: 12403

You have the wrong idea.. that is the structure of the table.. ala the fields that make up the table. The actual data is visible if you hit Browse

You need to Drop the table completely and recreate it from the Create Table command in the nuke.sql

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:00 pm

well, browse didnt work for that table, I must have deleted all the data from that table? (browse works for other tables I didnt "fix")

I just dropped that table ran nuke.sql from a virgin copy of 7.9 and it told me that nuke_authors already existed; sho nuff it did. I rename that table to nook_authors now I have my god admin back. thank you again evaders99.

My modules admin on the admin page is still not right tho.

I see I have 6 or so other tables called nuke_autonews, nuke_banned_ip, nuke_banner, nuke_banner_clients, nuke_banner_plans, nuke_banner positions, nuke_banner_terms, nuke_cities and nuke_users_temp.

I also have those same tables with nook_ prefix

as a side note a year or two back when I was applying security patches there was one I found that renamed all the tables to "nook" (hey all you script kiddies now you know my table prefixes!) I presume this was to make just yet another sql injection roadblock, sort of like renaming your admin.php (I have been hacked with a renamed admin.php btw)

so this script renamed all my tables to prefix "nook" and there is a line in the config for same. any comment regarding this notion?

I am not using banner ads can I drop those with the nuke prefix? (I still have them as "nook_"

still clueless how to get my modules admin back if cleaning up these tables doesnt work.

sorry not such a database dude just a sap trying to keep my site live.

thx

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 4:28 pm

all rhetoric aside, having figured out how to drop the aforementioned table and use the the renamed table to recreate the god admin this seems to have solved the problem of new stories not saving. I created a new story just as a test and it saved just fine; at the end of the day, it is the results that count. thank you again evaders99 for your help

some of my tables are showing alerts that there are more than one index and there are exclamation points in these phpmyadmin notes but I am not enough of an authority on mysql or phpmyadmin to tell whether this is cause for any real-world alarm. the database chks out healthy (with the usual misc unclosed tables) and repairs and optimises with no problems. the site loads pretty fast. I am a big fan of if it aint broken dont fix it so maybe the thing to do is move along till a glitch raises its ugly head? wont say I am not curious tho.
RH

Site Admin Joined: Aug 17, 2003 Posts: 12403

Yep changing the table prefix is a good security move

You can ignore the index warnings, they won't really hurt your site. It isn't critical to fix, but you could go through every table and do so if you had time...