We have a little bit of a strange issue and could use some input.
We are using CiviCRM on Joomla. Started on Joomla 1.5 years ago, then upgraded to J2.5/CiviCRM 4.4 a couple years ago, then a few weeks ago upgraded to J3.4/CiviCRM 4.7.1.
Somehow, somewhere along the way over the past couple years during multiple Joomla and CiviCRM upgrades, the site got configured so that Joomla was using one database (deafhhny_jmlprod) and CiviCRM was using a different database (deafhhny_jmlnew). It seems to have been working fine all this time and nobody noticed. Then during the latest upgrades, the CiviCRM config file got updated to point to the same DB Joomla uses (deafhhny_jmlprod). We noticed in the CiviCRM dashboard that we were missing the last couple years of data. I poked around and figured out that the data is in the deafhhny_jmlnew database, and that the civicrm.settings.php file had changed during the upgrade.
Before I just change the CiviCRM config file to point to the deafhhny_jmlnew database like it was before, I wanted to check with the community to find out if there could be any adverse effects to doing that.
If not, then I should be able to just update the database strings in civicrm.settings.php to point to deafhhny_jmlnew like it was before, right? Although, I'm not sure if that DB got upgraded during the 4.4 to 4.7.1 upgrade process or what will happen if I point CiviCRM to it now. Any ideas?
If there are potential issues with pointing to a different DB, can I get some help with how to get the data from the _jmlnew database into the _jmlprod database properly without breaking anything?
Thanks.