Db Workflow

3. Run setup-db

ddev setup-db

This command automatically:

• Drops and recreates the database
• Imports the SQL file (decompresses .gz)
• Search-replaces URLs: www.aph.org → aph.ddev.site
• Deactivates WPMU Defender (2FA/reCAPTCHA breaks locally)
• Flushes rewrite rules and caches

4. Reset admin password

ddev wp user update [email protected] --user_pass='password' --skip-plugins --skip-themes

Exporting the Database

# Quick export
ddev wp db export db/local-export.sql --skip-plugins --skip-themes

# Compressed export
ddev wp db export - --skip-plugins --skip-themes | gzip > db/local-export.sql.gz

# Export excluding large tables (saves space)
ddev wp db export db/local-export.sql --skip-plugins --skip-themes \
  --tables=$(ddev mysql -N -e "SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(table_name) FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_schema='db' AND table_name NOT LIKE 'wp_actionscheduler%' AND table_name NOT LIKE 'wp_statistics%' AND table_name NOT LIKE 'wp_blc_%' AND table_name NOT LIKE 'wp_redirection_logs'")

Snapshots (Quick Save/Restore)

Snapshots are faster than full imports — use them before risky changes:

# Save
ddev snapshot --name=before-plugin-update

# Restore
ddev snapshot restore --latest
# or
ddev snapshot restore --name=before-plugin-update

# List snapshots
ddev snapshot --list

# Clean up old snapshots
ddev snapshot --cleanup

Search-Replace

# Dry run (preview changes)
ddev wp search-replace 'old-value' 'new-value' --dry-run --all-tables --skip-plugins --skip-themes

# Execute
ddev wp search-replace 'old-value' 'new-value' --all-tables --skip-columns=guid --skip-plugins --skip-themes

Common replacements:

# Production → local
ddev wp search-replace 'https://www.aph.org' 'https://aph.ddev.site' --all-tables --skip-columns=guid --skip-plugins --skip-themes

# Fix mixed content
ddev wp search-replace 'http://aph.ddev.site' 'https://aph.ddev.site' --all-tables --skip-columns=guid --skip-plugins --skip-themes

WP Migrate DB Pro (Incremental Sync)

For pulling just the changed data from production:

1. Set license in .env: WPMDB_LICENCE='your-key'
2. In WP Admin → Tools → Migrate DB Pro
3. Configure connection to production
4. Pull with table exclusions:
   • wp_actionscheduler_*
   • wp_statistics_*
   • wp_blc_*
   • wp_redirection_logs

Troubleshooting

"Error establishing database connection"

ddev restart
# Check .env has: DB_NAME=db, DB_USER=db, DB_PASSWORD=db, DB_HOST=db

Import runs out of memory

# For very large files, import directly via mysql
ddev mysql < db/large-file.sql
# Then run search-replace manually

WP-CLI crashes during search-replace

Use --skip-plugins --skip-themes to avoid plugin compatibility issues:

ddev wp search-replace 'old' 'new' --all-tables --skip-plugins --skip-themes

Need to start completely fresh

ddev delete --omit-snapshot
ddev start
ddev setup-db