Apparently I'm not the only one having problems with the categories after a Wordpress 2.6 upgrade.

So, time to give something back to the Wordpress community, some screenshots on how I fixed it.

First of all, I upgraded from 2.2.3 to 2.6, it's possible this solution will work for you, but I don't make any promises.

I started by going to phpMyAdmin and having a look at the wptermtaxonomy table, and noticed all the descriptions where missing.

When I took a look at the backup file I made, more specifically, the wp_categories piece, I noticed the counts and ids matched up.

Empty Descriptions

I then manually edited each record, just hit the pencil icon, and filled in all my descriptions again. If you know some SQL you could do this faster, but anyway, everyone can do it manually :)

Corrected Descriptions

After I've done this, I visited my admin section and noticed the Descriptions were filled in again. But there was no Name, and all my posts still had empty categories linked to them.

To fix this, visit http://your-site/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=1 where 1 is the category id to edit. Fill in a Name and a Slug, the url name for your category, and save it.

Repeat this process for all your categories, until they all have a Name again.

Edit Names and Slugs

And that's it! Categories fixed, posts linked, category urls working again.

All Fixed

Good luck!

 
Comments: 121
 
  • David, you're the best.

     
     
  • Hi,

    I'm pretty much a WP-idiot so I was trying very hard to follow your instructions above. I was able to identify and remember my categories so I actually managed to do part 2 of your instructions - i.e. I managed to go into my admin section and renamed all the category names correctly. However, when I went to my site and clicked on any category, the link leads to nowhere. I guess it's 'cos I skipped your first step above. However, I'm unable to find the phpMyAdmin. Could you direct me where to find it?

    Really appreciate your help. Thanks!!

     
     
  • Hi, I installed phpMyAdmin and did as instructed above. While my blog looks ok, when I click on the individual categories, I get the error msg:
    --------------
    Redirect Loop

    Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

    The browser has stopped trying to retrieve the requested item. The site is redirecting the request in a way that will never complete.

    * Have you disabled or blocked cookies required by this site?
    * NOTE: If accepting the site's cookies does not resolve the problem, it is likely a server configuration issue and not your computer.
    --------------

    Any idea?

     
     
  • Thanks a lot!
    every works fine and quickly

     
     
  • UptownGal, when you are in the WP Admin, do the categories show up next to your posts?

    Also, try turning off Permalinks for a moment and testing it then. If that works, it's another WP 2.6 problem.

    I read about it and found a post about it here: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/189041?replies=12

    But try to default setting first and see if that works, that's a step in the right direction :)

    Tell me what your current Permalink settings are as well.

    Nice blog layout by the way :)

     
     
  • Ow yeah, definitely a Permalink issue on your site :) All the links are freaking out, not just categories.

     
     
  • Gasp! You are an absolutely life saver!! Thank you so much!! Can I put a link from my blog to yours just my way of saying "thank you"?

     
     
  • Sure, I'd be delighted :)

     
     
  • hi david
    perfect! you saved my day (and my blog)!
    :-)

    thank you very much for this fix
    hjalmar

     
     
  • David,

    Thanks for your help with this problem. I had put off upgrading Wordpress from an initial 2.2.2 installation because I was concerned that the procedure would break something.

    I had the same Categories issue that you did.

    Your procedure worked. However, I did find an easier way to deal with the second step. I found that the entries for the Category Name and Slug could be edited directly via the wp_terms table just as you did for the Description in the wp_term_taxonomy table. I just matched the ID's using the Descriptions as a guide. My site seems to be back in business.

    Thanks for your help!

    --Mark

     
     
  • @malbiniak

    like a charm. thanks!

     
     
  • Ger

    David,

    Thanks a lot for your solution. It worked for me. I upgraded and rolled back a couple of times. All times the category problem was there. I wonder when Wordpress will create an updated version.

    Thanks again. Cheers
    Ger

     
     
  • Great, thanks!
    I was also missing link category names - use this line to correct it in the same way as categories:
    http://your-site/wp-admin/link-category.php?action=edit&cat_ID=1

     
     
  • Thanks again Dave.

     
     
  • David,

    I would like to add to the chorus of people who have thanked you for your instructions. They worked for me too. Like you, I upgraded from 2.2.3 to 2.6.

    I'm guessing that those of us who had problems may have all had our Permalink settings configured to "Day and name." Mine were. A friend of mine had advised me to change this back to "Default" before upgrading, but I didn't see her message until after I'd performed the upgrade. Had I seen it, I think this may have been avoided. I did have all my few plug-ins disabled prior to upgrading.

    I'd also like to second the footnote that Mark added above about editing the wp_terms table to add the Name and Slug. That was faster and easier. After you open a database table in phpMyAdmin, you have to remember to click the "Browse" tab (along the top) in order to access the area that you need to edit.

    Remember to backup your database before you try this! I also took a backup afterward.

    Thanks again.

     
     
  • Hi Scott, I have my Permalinks set to custom, it's not that :)

    As it turns out, there's a problem in the WP 2.3 upgrade script (or a file named like that), where they forgot to map the names of the categories, causing them to be lost

    This has been fixed in their codebase now, so 2.6.1 shouldn't have that problem anymore.

    Anyway, once I fixed my blog, I didn't really care anymore ;)

    Also, I'm guessing you could probably fix it all without opening phpMyAdmin at all, just by guessing ID's in your admin section :) But hey, I took the screenshots by that time and it worked, quick hack :p

     
     
  • Huge thanks for sharing this, i was faced with the exact same problem and this made the complicated process very simple!

     
     
  • Many thanks for your good, clear instructions for fixing this annoying issue. I just upgraded from 2.02 and while most everything went remarkably well, the category problem bit me too.

    Thanks!

     
     
  • Hi,

    Thanks for the instructions, I managed to add the descriptions...

    Only issue now is that when I try click on id 1 to edit, it redirects me to posts???

    Any ideas?

    Thanks,

    Dave

     
     
  • WWG

    David said, "This has been fixed in their codebase now, so 2.6.1 shouldn’t have that problem anymore."

    I've used your instructions *thank you so much* to fix one blog that this happened to, and am going to wait to try it on any of my (many) others. Is there any way we can access the "fix" in the codebase, or any idea when the 2.6.1 release is due out?

     
     
  • Worked great, thank you for providing this guide. I'm glad I took a backup before I started or I'd have had no chance.

    Thanks again.

     
     
  • WOw, thanks! I had this problem where my categories disappeared after I upgraded to WordPress 2.6 too. My links also disappeared from being visible on the site. Reading this helps!

     
     
  • WWG,

    See this trac ticket: http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/7320

    and the following changesets to see they fixed it in their code:

    http://trac.wordpress.org/changeset/8350
    http://trac.wordpress.org/changeset/8351

     
     
  • Thanks for taking the time to get this down - it clarified what I was thinking of doing and worked a charm.

     
     
  • Your post here helped me get my categories back in working order. Thank you!

     
     
  • Thanks for the great write up. I was just upgrading to the latest WP and got the same problem. I pretty much figured it out but I wanted to check if anyone else had this issue, that's when I found your site.

    I'd like to add something here because I did encounter another related problem and want to share the solution.

    Basically, when I used the http://your-site/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=1
    link for one of my categories, I got the mysterious error 'Category not updated'. It turns out that the WP upgrade added other terms to the taxonomy (taken from the website meta-tags, I think) and one of them had the same name as the category that could not be updated.

    To fix this, enter back into phpMyAdmin and select the wp-terms table on the left sidebar. Click on Browse which is at the top of the page. This shows you the table with all terms. To allow upgrading the duplicate category, simply click on the pencil icon next to the duplicate term and rename it. Click go. Then you can go back and edit the category as per the instructions above.

    As an extension to this you do not need to use the category edit link. Instead simply edit the wp-terms table with your category data.

    - Itai

     
     
  • Dear David,

    I am extremely sorry about it.Please don't get angry on it.I really forgot to place the link back to your article.

    I am placing it right now in my article.

    Once again i apologize for my mistake.Please if possible remove the update part from the post.I also want to server the community as you does.

    And many thanks for such a wonderful post which helped me also a lot in upgrading some of my blogs.

    Best Regards,
    Samir

     
     
  • Thank you so much. I was tearing my hair out when I saw what happened after the upgrade!

     
     
  • Thanks for the info. My categories are now back after the upgrade.

     
     
  • Hi, I have made a couple o SQL queries to automate this process a little bit.

    The first thing you need to do it's export the table "wp_categories" from your old database backup (I guess that you have on!e) to the upgraded wp database.

    After do that, inside phpmyadmin you have to run this query, to update the new table wp_terms whit your olds categories names

    UPDATE wp_terms, wp_categories SET wp_terms.name = wp_categories .cat_name, wp_terms.slug = wp_categories.category_nicename WHERE wp_terms.term_id = wp_categories.cat_ID;

    After doing that... you have to run the next query...

    UPDATE wp_term_taxonomy, wp_terms SET
    wp_term_taxonomy.description = wp_terms.name WHERE
    wp_term_taxonomy.term_id = wp_terms.term_id

    That query puts the descriptions in the right place for your categories....

    The last step... it's to delete your wp_categories table... because you don't needed anymore.

    (sorry for my poor english...)

     
     
  • David,
    This is brilliant!
    After upgrading from WP 2.5 to 2.6 and gawking at the missing categories, I found your post, and dug into phpMyAdmin. All is well. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

     
     
  • This is great. My client says she lost her tags to - any ideas for regaining them?

     
     
  • David -

    THANK YOU SO MUCH for taking the time to write this up. You didn't have to, but you did. And you saved me a couple dozen hours of manually adding categories to over 500 posts! I'm guessing that you've saved the collective wordpress upgrading community weeks worth of time.

    I wrote the high-level solution on my blog, and linked back with much love to your blog for the details. http://www.butterhomes.com/blog/index.php/wordpress-categories-are-back/

    Thanks again,

    Chris B.

     
     
  • Hi, David!

    Thanks for the great post! Unfortunately, with 181 categories, it could take a while... lol

    Going to recommend to our lists they do what we'll do with our other blogs - HOLD OFF til a proper upgrade is available!

    Too bad WP didn't think to TEST their upgrade before releasing it on unsuspecting bloggers... ;)

    Cheers,

    Doug.

     
     
  • Great post. Thanks.

    If you followed the instructions in this post and would like to eliminate using the Wordpress admin GUI to populate the Names and Slugs.

    Use the "wp_terms" table via phpmysql. In this table you will find the column "term_id" correlates to the "cat_ID" where you grabbed your descriptions.

     
     
  • Hi, David. It's great. Thanks a lot. It makes a lot of senses. Will drop my feedback when I am done with the fixing :-)

     
     
  • Hi David,

    It works perfectly well. One more improvement: you can add name in your phpMyAdmin session like how you change the descriptions.

    Open table wp-term, you will see a table with term-ID which is the categories ID like that in wp-term-taxonomy. There, you can add category names and slugs like you did with the description part.

    Great work, David. Thanks again!

     
     
  • Thanks for writing this up.

    For me, there was no need to mess around with the database entries -- I found I could go straight to that "Edit Categories" URL and edit all of the fields (description, name, simple name) there.

     
     
  • Thanks a lot dude!
    Greets from Germany ;-)

     
     
  • Thank you thank you thank you. I never would have figured this out by myself. You saved me and my blog!

     
     
  • Great Fix,
    I thought I would have to go through and redo my categories for each story --- a nightmare
    thanks a lot
    you rock

     
     
  • ¡¡Graciasssssssssssssss!!!!!!!! :)

    Thanks a lot, I haven't found this information in Spanish... I'll translate your post. You're my hero today ;)

     
     
  • I'm not a techie, and there is no chance I can do this myself.

    Should I expect to see a fix in the next few weeks, or am I going to have to do this manually as described above no matter what?

    Any advice what to do next would be great.

    Thanks,

    Gordon

     
     
  • Gordon

    Also - If I roll back to the older version of WP will the problems also roll back?

    thanks

     
     
  • Gordon, you can try to do step 2 and just *guess* category id's.

    If you haven't deleted any, and you know how much you got, you can start from 1 and work your way upwards

    Might work, as someone in the comments already mentioned

     
     
  • And, no they won't, your categories have been emptied, unless you have a backup, they are lost and need manual re-entry

     
     
  • elsamu

    Using phpMyAdmin, you can fill all the details (name and slug) on the table wp_terms. The descriptions are on wp_terms_taxonomy.

    Its a faster way since you can do it at once :D

    Thanks for the explanation!

     
     
  • Gordon

    Thanks David.

    One question, I think I can remember all the categories, but when i go to the url it won't let me edit anything - it only says "add"

    /wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_id=4

    btw, every slug is now renamed to something like 2-2-2-2-2, 2-2-2-2-2-2- etc (not sure if that matters)

     
     
  • Kevin

    Okay I did this in phpmyadmin and the wp_term_taxonomy shows all the names snd descriptions but in wp2.6 is not showing the categories ?

    Whats goin on here ?

     
     
  • My bad - apparently this happens if you change the name and the descrition in phpmyadmin at the same time.

    Anyone had any success getting tags back ? I was using UTW previously and they are all still there in wp_tags but don't show up in the Tags dashboard

     
     
  • You have to rename the 2-2-2-2 if you use the categories in your url's, else they won't work.

    For example, I have a category 'Technology' and the slug is 'technology' (lower case version), if you have a space 'Visual Studio' I made 'visual-studio' of it.

     
     
  • You are my hero! This is a faster way to edit the categories:

    UPDATE `ww_term_taxonomy` SET `description` = 'Category-Name' WHERE `term_taxonomy_id` =X;
    x- must be the id

     
     
  • David:

    I have the same problem as Uptown Gal in the very first comment: I can't find "phpMyAdmin". I've looked in the site structure using cpanel as well as navigating around the WP-admin with no luck. Nor would "http:www.signaturestrategies.com/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID+1" allow me to enter a category name. It told me I already had that name in that spot.. Any ideas for this tech-handicapped bumbler?

     
     
  • MartinJ, Ask your host to help out? Give them this post to tell them why you are looking for phpMyAdmin.

    Or try again and be absolutely sure you typed the url correctly, eg: with an equal sign instead of a plus sign for your category.

     
     
  • I can find phpMyadmin and open up the current tables, but I don't know how to look at my database backup which resides on my hard drive as a .sql file. When I tried importing it into phpMyadmin, it ran some processes, but I didn't see any of the old tables. Help please?

     
     
  • Hi Nick, Open it up in Notepad, it's just a text file. And then scroll through it till you find your old category names and category id's.

    Good luck on getting that literature blog back up and running.

     
     
  • David, you are THE MAN! Thank you so much--it worked like a charm!

     
     
  • This works wonders! Thank you so much! *thumbs up

     
     
  • Julio

    Thanks! You really saved me!

     
     
  • Another big thanks here David for taking the time! Fortunately we didn't have hundreds of categories... and the spinning of the world doesn't depend on our blog.

     
     
  • Bless You David!!!! Like so many others have said, you are my hero today. And the same goes for Gerardo as well, since he provided the SQL queries I needed (and instructions) to update automatically my 80+ categories....that would have been horrible to do manually!!!

     
     
  • Thank you David for providing the solution to fix the missing categories in WP 2.6. I could fix the problems in one of my blogs. I however have many blogs to upgrade and I think it is better to wait till WordPress comes up with 2.6.1 to fix this problem.

     
     
  • Thanks! I had a backup and was able to just renamed that categories in the wp-admin editor. Phew. Now my iPhone application works, too.

     
     
  • Thank you!!! Worked like a charm! :)

     
     
  • Great, thanks! I upgraded on fantasico from 2.1.2 to 2.6 and hit the same problem.

    One other thing that people might find helpful is that it also mucked up my 'link categories' (old blogroll) as well.

    To give it/them a name & slug, the url will be something like:
    http://your-site/wp-admin/link-category.php?action=edit&cat_ID=2

    Thanks again!

     
     
  • Thank you so much for your easy-to-follow instructions. Even a beginner like me got my categories back with no problems! :)

     
     
  • Awesome. Thanks!

     
     
  • jeff

    woohoo! thanks for the clear, easy instructions to fix this issue. it works great!!!

     
     
  • Thanks for the post. This definitely helped.
    I wrote 2 SQL queries that do the job automatically, you just have to restore the old wp_categories tables:

    UPDATE wp_terms, wp_categories SET wp_terms.name = wp_categories.cat_name, wp_terms.slug = wp_categories.category_nicename
    WHERE wp_terms.term_id = wp_categories.cat_ID

    UPDATE wp_term_taxonomy, wp_categories SET wp_term_taxonomy.description = wp_categories.category_description
    WHERE wp_term_taxonomy.term_id = wp_categories.cat_ID


    You can get the details from here:
    http://remy.supertext.ch/2008/08/wordpress-upgrade-to-26-deletes-all-categories/

     
     
  • Well, I didn't back up my database, but all tags for articles were there. Between that and the edit query string you'd found for categories.php, I was able to get back to where I was before. Thanks!

     
     
  • Me

    Thanks for the tips man...really really helps and my site is not back up and running

     
     
  • I've got few trouble when I was upgrading to version 2.6, this article is really helpful. thanks

     
     
  • Thanks!!!! You was my salvation, I was going to recover all files but it was easier with your help, thanks to you :D

    Sebas from spain

     
     
  • Echoing everyone else's thoughts on here, thanks SO much for publishing this fix.

     
     
  • hi thank a lot bro. your article very usefull.

    -jack-

     
     
  • natalia

    thanks! it's great that I found your site. I just use your step 2 and it solved my problem. Thank God!

     
     
  • @106 concerning the slug and name of the blogroll: I ended up changing the "Taxonomy" for the blogroll category to "category" from "link_category" in phpMyAdmin long enough to add a name and slug to the blogroll in the WordPress admin area as David outlines above. Then I just went back into phpMyAdmin and changed the blogroll's category "Taxonomy" back to "link_category". It worked! Your link is a lot better though.

     
     
  • Thanks mate, your explanation saved our site! Every stinkin' time I upgrade WordPress something like this ends up happening, but thank goodness for the helpful WP community. The solutions that the users discover always end up patching up the poor coding of the new builds. Thanks again!

     
     
  • Hi David! I recently upgraded to WP2.6 coming from an old version and I had the same problem you described above with regards to missing all of the categories. After bumping into this blog post, I went ahead and tried to follow your instructions and managed successfully to add the category names, slugs and descriptions, both in wp_terms & wp_term_taxonomy (As suggested by one of your readers in the comments above), but when going into the admin panel I found out that it didn't show *any* categories at all. Just shows is blank.
    I have then tried to follow your set of instructions around "http://mysite.com/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=1" and it apparently creates a new category because I tried it out with one entry where I knew I had 7 blog posts and after saving the changes it showed the category name and everything else, but no link to the rest of the posts.

    Am I missing something in here while following your steps? Do you know what could possibly be wrong what the steps I am following? Any help or suggestions you may have would be very appreciated!

    And once I get this one sorted out, you would also be my hero! :-D

    Well done!

     
     
  • Wooohooo! And we are back in business! I took another look into the set of instructions and repeated the process and this time around, go figure, it worked out like a charm! Wonderful stuff, David! Our hero! Thanks for the superb piece of work and for sharing it with us! Greatly appreciated! :-)

     
     
  • David. You = da man

     
     
  • Nick

    Thank You, Thank You, Thank You !

     
     
  • Thank you very much about this very nice and usefull post.

    I think that before to upgrade to 2.6 I had to do it with 2.5 of Wordpress and the jump to 2.6

     
     
  • Just adding another thank you to the chorus! This was a real time/lifesaver.

     
     
  • Thank you, David, for solving this problem and posting it for everyone!

    I read through all the comments and other suggestions, and this is what I did:

    I looked at my backup of wp_categories, and typed up in notepad the category names corresponding in the category numbers.

    I then went to phpMyAdmin on the cPanel, and instead of inputting the info on the wp_term_taxonomy, I did it on the wp_terms after clicking the 'browse' tab.

    Under 'name' I put in the category name, and under 'slug' I put in the category slug (category name, lowercase, with hyphen in between if multiple words) --- then, all done - completely!

    This procedure eliminates the need to input the same info all over again in the Wordpress wp-admin interface.

    Thanks so much David - you are such a lifesaver!!!

     
     
  • Thanks very much indeed, David and Mark, I've actually been able to fix the problem thanks to your posts above and everything is back to normal.

    Cheers, Yvonne.

     
     
  • Mona

    Thank you for the information, that was a real help!

     
     
  • David,
    Thanks to the great page you have here, I've slowly started to resurrect my site following a disasterous deletion of 450 category labels during my 2.6 "upgrade"... hoping to know if you, or anyone else, has run into this problem that's jamming me up.
    In the wp_terms section under phpmyadmin, I only have about 100 of the aforementioned 450 categories there, even though all 450 are present in wp_terms_taxonomy... so I can't relabel anything past 100 in "terms" - any clue what's going on?

    Also, who has the current record for most categories on a site? With 450, I have to be up there...

     
     
  • James, this might sound stupid, but you're sure there isn't a 'next page' link somewhere in phpMyAdmin? 100 sounds like a way to round number to me :)

     
     
  • David,
    I wish. It's 106 terms that are listed, to be precise. Sensing this is on my end... *sigh*

     
     
  • Thank you! I did everything from within my wordpress admin, including changing the description. what a lifesaver you are!

     
     
  • tim

    Good show, old chap!

     
     
  • Thank you for these instructions, my tags are saved!!

     
     
  • Your post probably saved me an entire day of digging through my database! Thanks!

     
     
  • Hi there... saw the notification a couple of days ago that WP 2.6.1 is out and the permalink bug is fixed there. Was waiting a few days before I tried upgrading - just in case 2.6.1 fixed 1 problem but adds another. SEEMS ok so far... so I'm going to upgrade to that. Hope it fixes my blog's permalink problem! Are you upgrading to 2.6.1?

     
     
  • Hi UptownGal,

    I might be upgrading this weekend, if I remember it :p

     
     
  • A million thanks for your wonderful walk-through. My hosting provider, to fix a problem at their end, upgraded my blog without telling me they were going to. (I've been in charge of that, mostly, with the ol' Fantastico script.) Had the category problem and your instructions saved my skin.

    Now I need to import the "Simple Tags" tags into WP. Hoping the Import feature that handles it works, but that's a problem for another day.

     
     
  • Shaggy

    Thanks for sharing. It worked.

     
     
  • Peggy

    Thank you so much for the easy to follow directions!

     
     
  • Loren

    Hi David:

    Checking my bolg today I get this message instead of any actual category links, "No categories."

    When I go to manage > categories, no categories are displayed.

    When I go to Manage->Posts, all Posts are marked as "Uncategorized". When I do click on any given Post the Categories panel does properly indicate the categories that it belongs to.

    I have not upgraded recently and am using v2.5.

    I tried your solution and it did not work. Any thoughts for what I could try?

     
     
  • MajoR

    My hero! You fixed my nightmare! Many thanks!

     
     
  • If I would have only seen this earlier... I wasted about 2 hours trying to add categories to my post.

    This took all of 5 mins. Thank you, thank you and thank you.

    You're the man.

     
     
  • Loren, if you haven't done anything lately, I have no idea, sorry.

     
     
  • Your Solution is for Problem when Categories go blank, matching the ids, adding description and name manually.
    but my Problem is, Categories are there but when I open them they lead to 404-Page, where as Post Count is still shown.

    Please.

     
     
  • Enk, read comment number 5 I've made to this thread, probably a Permalink issue. If not, I don't know and you'll have to find an answer elsewhere.

     
     
  • Hello David,

    I just had the same problem that you already fixed, but when I tried to fix it myself following your steps, i had a problem near the end.

    I've already filled the description of all the categories into the database, but when I enter the admin panel of WP, on Manage/Categories there's still no list of them, and when I try to edit the name of every category manually (with the http://your-name/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=1), it happens that every ID has already its name, slug and so, but it's still missing from the category list, and of course, not linked to the posts.

    Any ideas? I'd really appreciate some thoughts : )

    Cheers!

    Erik.

     
     
  • Here is another set of SQL queries I used to upgrade my WordPress version 2.1.3 to 2.6.3, thus fixing the missing category issue (this of course after restoring the wp_categories table):

    1. Update wp_term_taxonomy.descriptions from wp_categories

    UPDATE wp_term_taxonomy, wp_categories
    SET wp_term_taxonomy.description = wp_categories.cat_name
    WHERE wp_term_taxonomy.term_id = wp_categories.cat_ID;


    2. Update wp_terms.name from wp_categories

    UPDATE wp_terms,wp_categories
    SET wp_terms.name = wp_categories.cat_name
    WHERE wp_terms.term_id = wp_categories.cat_ID;


    3. Update wp_terms.slug from name (change to lowercase, replace whitespace w/ dashes, remove periods and &'s)

    UPDATE wp_terms
    SET slug = replace( replace( replace( replace( lower(name), ' ', '-'), '/', '-'), '.', ''), '-&', '');

     
     
  • I have not upgraded recently and am using v2.5.

    I tried your solution and it did not work. Any thoughts for what I could try? and test wp 2.7 beta now

     
     
  • Dan

    it was boring, it was a mystery but I fixed it with your help

    thanks dude

     
     
  • I foolishly trusted Network Solutions to do my WP upgrade, thus missed all of the above prior to finding myself in the same category-less place.

    Is it true that phpMyAdmin has to be installed on the server's machine? I.e., I cannot just install it myself? I am confused about that, I think I can follow the rest of the directions if I can get phpMyAdmin to run.

    HALP! ! ! !

    Jon C.

     
     
  • I cannot even get phpMyAdmin installed. I am not totally ignorant in web and unix matters, but whenever I try to follow someone's directions to chmod it always leads to a directory locked even to me -- cannot open it or change its permissions or anything. it is deeply frustrating. without phpMyAdmin I think it is impossible to proceed with the above fix, correct?

    ugh.

    jc

     
     
  • I am attempting to do an upgrade from 2.2.1 to 2.6.3 via my hosting package (through CPanel and running automatic upgrade process).

    The following error message is displayed:

    Upgrading…
    Initializing Parameters - Done.
    Warning: system() has been disabled for security reasons in /tmp/cpanel_phpengine.1227518059.34446_2pyHIHir on line 1445
    Upgrade failed
    The database oncall_wrdp1 is not working properly and the creation of a database backup file has failed. Please contact the sysadmin for further assistance. Include this message for reference.
    The initial installation has not been modified.

    I emailed tech support at my hosting company and had the following reply

    This is normally caused by a bad install of a script or a damaged database, you need to double check that
    the authors of wordpress have not reported any problems with the upgrade on thier own support forum
    Regards,

    To date, there has been no errors or problems with the preconfigured installation and and I cannot find anything here on the support forum which would answer this problem.

    Any advice people?

    With thanks

     
     
  • mo

    Thanks your site helped a lot .....

    I had also missing link-categories and the same action command did not work for me here. Though I found this site http://neonlabs.structum.net/blog/?p=66 and the advice to ad the names in the <i>wp_terms&gt;&gt;&gt;Here you will add the name and the slug name for each of the categories</i> was very helpful here.

     
     
  • I am going to give this a try. I was ready to cry after losing the categories to over 10 years of blog posts. THANK YOU!

     
     
  • Thank you, I very much have regretted going from Wordpress 2.5 to 2.7 I've had nothing but trouble with podcasts going down, No categories, No tags etc etc. Couldn't find a fix on WP forum anywhere! Stumbled across this in Google tried the SQL query from above and I think its worked. (fingers crossed) Thank you v much.

     
     
  • Great Solutions to fix this problem. All categories come up again.

    Thank you, my hero... ^_^

     
     
  • Upgrading WordPress is a nightmare I was facing with! So this is a cool solution to fix this problem. Thank you !

     
     
  • Thanks. I basically used this with the http://your-site/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&amp;cat_ID=1 and kept typing a new number until I found the one that was missing. After I updated the infringing category, it showed up again in the list.

     
     
  • I have the newest wordpress
    Version 2.8

    and I'm losing categorys, granted im going thru every page and putting the right name of the band back again, and then sometimes it dissappears like i was on page 11 then i was @ page 8 then I stoped and then boom back to 11??

    Thanks
    Dave
    AIM - youaretehscene

     
     
  • Thanks for posting this David - really helpful!

    (worth mentioning that the second time a category disappeared it was because it was empty of posts....took 10 minutes to figure that one out!!)

     
     
  • Even i got the same error in 2.9 any help pls??

     
     
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