here is list of all the tables shown in the DATABASE TOOLS>INFORMATION view of the CP

w3t_AddressBook
w3t_AdminSearches
w3t_Announcements
w3t_Banned
w3t_BannedEmails
w3t_Boards
w3t_Cache
w3t_Calendar
w3t_Category
w3t_CensorList
w3t_ContentIslands
w3t_DisplayNames
w3t_Favorites
w3t_Graemlins
w3t_Groups
w3t_Languages
w3t_Last
w3t_Mailer
w3t_MemberSearches
w3t_Messages
w3t_ModNotify
w3t_Moderators
w3t_Online
w3t_Permissions
w3t_PollMain
w3t_PollOptions
w3t_PollQuestions
w3t_PollVotes
w3t_Posts
w3t_Queries
w3t_Ratings
w3t_Registration
w3t_ReservedNames
w3t_SearchResults
w3t_Subscribe
w3t_UserNotes
w3t_UserTitles
w3t_Users
w3t_Version

Thanks for everything so far!

I have not been able to locate a full config.inc.php file.
If anybody has one for v6.5 and can post it, I'd really appreciate it.

I set about the task of mapping the various config contents to their respective locations in the control panel and have most of them located but if anybody knows of a completed map and could direct me to it, that too would be very appreciated.

I've been able to conclude, as I expected would be the case, that in fact these settings from the config.inc.php and theme.inc.php files are supposed to be housed in a table.

However, the table(s) appear to be gone or corrupted or, if they are supposed to be in one of the above tables, I am not finding the records.
Any steerage on this topic would also be appreciated. If the table(s) are corrupted, perhaps I could repair them if I knew the name(s). Clearly this would be the most preferred option as that would forgo any need to manually map all these fields and manually edit the config and theme files.

On a side note, we're considering upgrading to the newer version, but I have some reservations about problems which may be encountered if we attempt the migration before we have everything in the database fully proper (e.g. missing tables and or records restored/rebuilt/repaired).

Just a side thought;
is it possible these control panel settings are actually housed in the various related tables with specific IDs and not necessarily in their own table(s).

For example, user specific control panel settings housed in a specific user record in the users table, etc.

I notice there is one user record with the U_Username **DONOTDELETE** and U_Number of 1

I do not see any of the settings I would expect to see, nor do I see any similar records i nthe U_Boards table where presumably other board specific settings would need to live if this theory were accurate.

Just grasping at straws here, trying to figure out how we could lose an entire table, or if we actually did lose an entire table.

we have a two year old back up and the tables listed in it are also contained in the current db...

(i know, two years is waaaay too long to go without a back up, but seriously, that was not supposed to be my area of responsiblilty and I always just assumed it was being done by the person whose job it was).

The basic settings are all stored in the config.inc.php file. User specific settings would be stored in the w3t_Users table for that specific version and that's really about it.

If your config file keeps getting wiped out upon submission then it could be that the variables just aren't being submitted. This could be something like an misconfigured suhosin or something of that nature. If it's telling you that the settings were updated, it's trying to write out the updated config file, but the variables just aren't getting there.

Hi Rick,

Well, I guess that answers my questions...

But,

suhosin = ???

suhosin

roflmao

Thanks terribly much but, I'm afraid that is greek to me

"security" lol

An update:

I was able to manually rebuild both the config.inc.php and theme.inc.php files

It took lots of trial and error and I had to open some of the main PHP files in visual studio in order to identify some of the variables, but I was ultimately successful (took many hours).

needless to say, I have pulled backups of the *.inc.php files...
Thanks for all the help toward this painful task.

I discovered that any "update" click in the control panel wipes out the settings associated with that particular page (not all the settings in the entire file).

This is particularly problematic when the page happens to contain settings that live in both the inc.php files.

In a potentially related item, I noticed something else.

We have problems with spammers (not news)
I have been active in banning offending user IDs (as opposed to simply deleting them).
I don't delete them because the user ID records contain useful information when it comes to blocking IPs and IP ranges.

Typically, I will gather certain information about the user, place it in the notes field, uncheck the access radio button and clicj update.
What happens next is the page reloads with a SQL error.
And I have found that after I do this, I cannot access that user's record through the control panel.

While researching what the cause could be, I noticed the U_Groups, field was blank whereas the other users were assigned to "-3-".
So, I wrote a query to update that field and now, after I ban users, I run that query and I have managed to work around the problem.
Still though, I'm not sure if this problem is related to the problem with the *.inc.php files because the SQL error in this problem seems to indicate the query is expecting to find members of the "users" group and I am not certain if when I ban a member if that is supposed to blank that field (since there actually is a specific "U_Banned" field in the table).
If there is a connection, it would seem to be in if that U_Groups field is supposed to be updated or not and if not, why is it getting blanked.
I've not looked deeply a the "showuser.php" to see what is supposed to happen.

So, any different insights as to what might be causing the problem with the *.inc.php files?

If it is the "suhosin" problem, where does one look or what does one do in order to check and or repair this?