Watchdog table became corrupted.

I have just completed partial repairs to the table 'watchdog' after it appears to have been corrupted somehow overnight. The site this relates to is at www.orchidsonline.com.au/interactive/

Yesterday I noted an extremely large number of search requests all at the same minute in time (2-3 pages long) listed in the log at /interactive/admin. After keeping an eye on the site up until around 12.00PM local time (Brisbane) I noted no further unusual events.

This morning when I logged in I was surprised to see an error page present when I tried to login.

The login was successful however (I used 'back' and then 'refresh') and I went to the admin area where another error page resulted. Sorry I did not copy the error content but sent it and a detailed description of the details of my problems to my webhosting provider for some assistance. They have not yet replied (11.25AM).

In the meantime it became clear that the table 'watchdog' had been corrupted in some way. The table was still in the list of tables in my mySQL database when I checked using phpMyAdmin. However when I tried to 'Browse' the table a similar SQL error came back.

I searched these forums and found help at How to repair watchdog (if reparing from mysql doesnt work)

I used that advice. (Thanks to the author) However the table still needed the field 'severity' added to allow the site to function.

I added that and not knowing any better have set it to the below...

severity int(5) No 0 (using phpMyAdmin)

OK...all is 'sort of ok' now however the TYPE field in the log is not showing up at all now.

Type Date Message User Operations
2 Oct 2005 - 11:06 Search: vanda (content). Anonymous results details
2 Oct 2005 - 11:03 Search: euanthe (content). Anonymous results details
2 Oct 2005 - 11:02 Session closed for Stevo. Stevo details

Can anyone help?

By the way.....we all can learn from this! The moral is....
Back up your databases regularly....I know I had not done that.