Zen Cart is a free open source eCommerce shopping cart software, which is widely used by online stores. The shopping carts seem to be built with much-complicated programming, but Zen Cart is the one that puts the merchant’s and customer’s needs in the first place. It is an eCommerce software, easy to install and set up by any non-technically skilled person that has basic knowledge of computer.
There are many free and open-source shopping carts available to download and install, but none can compare with the features and support Zen Cart offers.
Depending on your web hosting provider for backing up your Zen Cart store database is not always good. The backup and restoration of your databases done by the Web Hosting UK company will benefit only them, not you. Usually, the web hosts will perform the full server backup instead of the selected databases you want. You cannot ask them to restore a particular database from the full server backup, it’s kind of tricky and may not accept your request.
Hence, it is always better to know how to backup and restore Zen Cart MySQL Database on your dedicated server hosting server on your own. Backing up and restoring your Zen Cart Database can be done using the following two different methods:
- Backup and Restore Database using phpMyAdmin
- Backup and Restore Database using Database Backup – MySQL Plugin
In this article, we will show you how to backup and restore Zen Cart MySQL Database using both methods. Let’s start with the first method.
Backup Zen Cart MySQL Database using phpMyAdmin
phpMyAdmin is one of the widely used and popular tools available in the cPanel to manage MySQL databases. Usually, it is installed default into cPanel and offered by almost every web hosting provider. If it is not installed on your dedicated server, you can ask your web host to install it on your dedicated server. This is one of the best and easiest ways to backup and restores specific MySQL database tables.
Step 1: Log in to your cPanel control panel and click on phpMyAdmin.
Step 2: Now, on the left panel click on the Zen Cart database.
Step 3: A screen will appear showing you the tables available inside your Zen Cart store database. Forget those, and simply click on the “Export” tab on the top of the tables.
Step 4: Select your Zen Cart files shown in the “Export” box starting with the “zen_” or “Select All” to select all the files by default.
Step 5: Under that export, box makes sure you select the “SQL” to download your backup file in .sql format.
Step 6: Under the “SQL options“ make sure you tick the following settings.
1) Structure:
a) Add DROP TABLE
b) Add AUTO_INCREMENT value
c) Enclose table and field names with backquotes
2) Data:
a) Complete inserts
b) Extended inserts
c) Use hexadecimal for BLOB
Step 7: Select the box “Save as file” option and don’t make any changes to the file name template.
Step 8: Select the compression method “gzipped”.
Step 9: Hit the “Go” button and save the file to your local machine.
That’s it! Now, that you know how to back up a database using phpMyAdmin, let’s learn how to restore a backup using phpMyAdmin.
Restore Zen Cart MySQL database backup using phpMyAdmin
We assume that you have logged into your cPanel >> phpMyAdmin.
Step 1: On the left panel, click on the Zen Cart database.
Step 2: Click on the “Import” tab on the top of the tables.
Step 3: To select the database backup file from your local machine, click on the “Choose File” button and select the backup file you want to restore.
Step 4: Hit the “Go” button.
That’s it! Your Zen Cart database backup file will be uploaded to the server and restored successfully.
Backup Zen Cart Database using Database Backup – MySQL Plugin
Database Backup – MySQL plugin is a module available in the Zen Cart eCommerce Hosting shopping cart Admin panel that allows fast backups and restores of databases from within the Admin Panel of your Zen Cart. Let’s see, how to backup your Zen Cart database using the database backup – MySQL plugin.
Step 1: Log in to your Zen Cart Admin Panel.
Step 2: Now, click on the “Tools” menu and click the “Database Backup – MySQL” option.
Step 3: Hit the “Backup” button to backup your Zen Cart database.
Step 4: On the right-side panel, you will need to select the file compression method. We recommend you select the GZIP compression as it will reduce the size of your backup file.
Step 5: You can download the backup file directly to your local machine without storing it on the server. If yes, tick the Download without storing on server” option. If don’t, unchecked it, and the file will be saved to the server in the admin backups directory. If you wish to download it from the server, you can always download a copy of it using your favorite FTP client.
Step 6: Now, hit the “Backup” button to proceed.
That’s it! You will receive a message in the Top Left Corner “Success: The database has been saved.”
Restore Zen Cart Backup File using Database Backup – MySQL Plugin
Step 1: To restore the backup file stored on your local machine, you need to put it in the /admin/backups/ directory on your server using your favorite FTP client.
Step 2: Log in to your Admin Panel of Zen Cart Store.
Step 3: Now, click on the “Tools” menu, navigate to the “Database Backup – MySQL” option and click on it.
Step 4: Choose the backup file you wish to restore from the list of the backup files.
Step 5: Simply click on the “Restore” button on the right sidebar. Make sure you click the Restore button on the right side and not the button under the list of the backup files.
That’s it! The restoration of the Zen Cart backup file will be done successfully.
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