Please help. All links with ids between 23 and 59 have just disappeared. They are no longer in links.db and no longer in search results or built pages. Please advise. I am worried even more will go and I cannot understand what is happening.

First of all, use your backup files to restore your database. Secondly, check if all the links in your links.db file have unique IDs. Thirdly, see if the number in your linksid.txt file corresponds to the actual number of links in your database.

Thomas
http://links.japanref.com

Hi Thomas,

First - My backup folder is empty of files, and links.db.bak in the data folder also has the same ids missing as links.db. I don't have any back up to restore the links.

Second - Yes. All links in links.db have unique ids.

Third - the number in linksid.txt still corresponds to the ORIGINAL number of links BEFORE they vanished. It still says 107 which IS the same as the last number in links.db but there are NOT 107 links as many have disappeared - eg the numbering in links.db jumps from 23 to 59. There are also a couple of other gaps in the numbering where links have been deleted.

I was thinking - I may have downloaded and reloaded the links.db file in ASCII mode while looking at it on the server with Cute FTP. Could this have caused the problems??