webhost suspended my site for violation of TOS. Live chat stated that the problem (excessive tables) had to be rectified through 'databases' in the cPanel (myPHPadmin) as there were excessive tables which had to be deleted. I hadn't used website for months but when I logged into email found hundreds of new site registrations and gather they are spam which may have caused the problem. Here is the mysql table statistics: Database Name # of Tables paceleg1_wordpress 3629 paceleg1_wrdp6 18 paceleg1_wrdp8 17 paceleg1_wrdp5 13 paceleg1_wrdp4 11 paceleg1_wrdp7 11 paceleg1_wrdp9 11 paceleg1_wrdp3 10 Not clear on how to go about deleting tables. Any advice appreciated. Using WPMU
To delete tables, DROP them. (Using phpMyAdmin will make it simple - just click the X for each table you want to delete.)
PHPMyAdmin is a good tool to manage the tables. Though with that many, you may need to use some SQL to wipe out a large portion of them.
Thanks for the responses. I am confused. This is the advice that I got from the Host: You can use phpMyAdmin to delete tables or even the entire database. The tables for each installation are listed with wp_NN_ where NN is a number. More information on the WordPress database layout to assist you with which tables can or should be deleted can be found at codex.WordPress.org. They said I should know which tables aren't associated with my own website. I don't mind manually deleting the tables if need be if I can recognise them? The alternate advice I got was that hackers have hacked into the database and the problem will recur unless I move to wordpress.com as a host. It is $240 a year for hosting with wordpress.com Anyone have any views about this?
If the tables are unrelated to your site, is was suggested it is the site I need to secure. Transferring site to a temporary private location and then to wordpress.com will fix the problem. Should it be obvious which tables are not associated with my site? Also when I went to codex.wordpress.org it resolved to a portal.
You should be able to identify the problem tables depending on the content. Lots of spam and other nasties in them. If they suggest another hosting site, then maybe their setup is insecure too. Did you keep up to date with Wordpress and plugins you used? There are also some simple steps to take to avoid most problems since hackers typically look for easy targets.
I think you can let them delete it for you, as part of their customer service? If not you can do it by checking the data. If most of them are not familliar you can delete the data.
EvOLv, no they say they can't identify the tables which aren't associated with my site. They suggested to contact a third party service, such as wewatchyourwebsite.com, sitelock.com or sucurus.com; those companies provide assistance with hacked sites and they may be able to assist you with removing unwanted databases