Joomla! Forum - community, help and support

Call me thick, but when you create an article with some text and pictures and save it. Where the hell does it go? I know that Joomla is a CMS and gathers bits from all over the place to make a page but where does it gather the bits from ie: images from the media folder, audio from an uploaded audio source but where is all the text that was typed in JCE gone. I have searced high and low through the folders in my installation directory and cannnot find any articles.
This is crackin me up ............ !

It goes in the jos_content table of your database.

If you have access to phpMyAdmin, it can be instructive to browse the database to see what's in there.

As SpareSimian has said, the title, date, text (etc) of your article is saved as a record in a mySQL database in a table titled (usually) jos_content.

The images that you have uploaded are saved in /images/stories (and possibily folders below that).

The article just has a reference to that picture location.

So the articles are not stored in a "file" as such ... they are stored in the database. And to access that you would generally use phpMyAdmin (which is on your hosting control panel).

There is an extension that will add some phpMyAdmin capabilities to your Joomla admin site, if that is of interest to you.

Thanks for that info Guys. The problem I now have is that the original database has been deleted from the server. Can I import the information from a backup to a new site database and recover the old pages?
Jeff

The obvious question here would be: Do you have a backup?

If you have a good backup, then the answer is "Yes."

You would need to do some work in your hosting control panel to do this.

So, let's say that you have lost your database completely, but you do have a backup copy of it.

My first question is, "In what format is the backup copy?" Hopefully it is in the form of an "SQL Dump" file. This usually has an .sql extension, but may be zipped or gzipped.

If you have that, then you can create a new, blank database on your server, import that file into that database, and it should be repopulated with your data.

Then, you will need to modify the configuration.php file in the root folder of your Joomla site (via FTP or your hosting control panel) to modify the database name and password to fit the db that you just freshly created.

And that should put you back in business.

Let us know if you need more specific guidance. We'll be glad to help. If you've never done this before it can be a bit confusing, but we'll help you get it done.

Thanks for the advice. The file is an .sql so I will try to restore the db on the server as you suggested. Keep you up to speed on the progress. Question? Could I not just import the file back into the new db that is controlling the new site as it has the same filename as the old db or would that cause conflict and populate tables that have not been created in the new site yet?
Jeff

Chances are the sql file that you have is set to automatically create any tables that it needs on the fly.

The possible conflict is if it doesn't empty a table before repopulating it, and it tries to create 2 records with the same id (which must be unique).

If it doesn't like what you are doing, phpMyAdmin will complain, and if necessary, you can clear the tables manually first in phpMyAdmin.

Keep us posted. We're cheering for you!

It has seemed to work. I uploaded the file to the CPanel in MyPHP and imported the file to the existing SQL database. The site is still working and the content has returned. My only gripe is that it also imported some tables that are not required as the modules we uninstalled, but I feel that is a minor inconveinence. Thanks for the advice guys, glad to be in such good company.
J

it also imported some tables that are not required as the modules we uninstalled

Actually, this is normal and is good.

Here's why: Let's say you are using a particular module that needs its own data tables to run.

Now, a new version of that module comes out and you want to upgrade to the "latest and the greatest."

The normal process to upgrade a module is to uninstall the module, then install the new version. If the tables were dropped completely when you uninstalled the module, then you would have to totally reconfigure it when you install the new version.

But, by leaving the tables in place, reinstalling the new module is a much, much easier process!

So, this is actually a good thing and is by design.

Some module uninstallers give you the option of "totally uninstall, including removing the data tables" while others just leave them behind thinking, "Right. This webmaster is probably just upgrading our wonderful module."

So, if you are sure that you don't need the tables any more, and you are sure you know exactly what tables are used by the module (it's often clear by the table names), then you can drop the tables from the db in phpMyAdmin.