So the other day, while I was sleeping my site inexplicably lost all of its settings. I have a feeling that another admin accidentally updated the theme, but that is neither here nor there. I have a backup of the database, but it is a multi-user site and items have been added to the database since the mix up. My question is, is there a way that I can restore just the settings from the backup or do I have to restore the entire database. Sorry if this is a redundant question, I searched the forum but couldn't find this answer. Thanks in advance for any help.

This might seem like a lot of work, but may be the safest thing.

create a new database and restore the backup to that. Then create a new wordpress in install in a subfolder or test site. use phpmyadmin to edit the 'siteurl' and 'home' rows of the wp-option table to point to the new location

Then you can login and just use the Atahualpa export to get all teh settings.

Thanks for the reply. What if I don't have a recent theme settings export (I know, punching myself)? Are the settings before the reset saved in my database backup?

they should be. The atahualpa settings are stored in the wordpress database - in the wp-options table in the row 'bfa_ata4'

perfect, thanks for your help.

So I restored the data from a backup of just that row, but the theme did not change back to the way it was. When I go back to the theme options page in the backend, none of my CSS inserts are there. Am I missing a step or am I just screwed?

How did you restore that one row? Export/import it using phpMyAdmin?

I just copy and pasted the option_value from the value in the backup. Clearly that is not the proper way to do it because when I save it it reverts back to the value I don't want rather than the one from the backup. I'm kind of a phpmyadmin newb if you hadn't guessed.

This is why I suggested you create a new wordpress install and use the theme option to do the export.

You can do an export/import, but trying to explain all the steps is a little beyond the forum

This is why everyone should have a 'play' site that you can mess up without any issue. In this case you could export the original site, import it into the play site (changing the URL) and then do the export

Thanks. Your original solution makes sense to me now.

Thank you again for all of your help. I have one more question (I think). I have installed wordpress on my local machine using MAMP. Everything works perfectly until I import the backup into the database on the local machine. Once I do this and open the backend of the local installation I am redirected to the site out on the web, so then I am not able to access the old settings. Is there something in the backup that is causing this redirect?

Yes, in the wp-options table there are two rows that need to be changed to use the mamp address.
For example it mint be a 192.... Address so you have to change the wordpress URL and home rows to use that address.

One shows on the first page when you browse the wp-options ta le, and the other is on the second page.