I have a small site that is live. I have installed MAMP and want to work on a new wordPress design locally.

I have exported the db through myPHPAdmin and saved it to my desktop as a zip file.

in myPHPAdmin (for MAMP) I have created an empty db and then imported the zipped file.

Looking at the tables they seem to have the same amount of posts and file size etc. but the imported post don't show in my local WP site?? Instead I see the default posts.

Clearly I'm doing something wrong. It's got to be simple but I'm not seeing it.
-Help.

If you see the information in the local database then the import probably worked. What's likely happening is when you installed WordPress locally under MAMP you had first created a database for the install. You wp-config.php file is most likely still pointing to the original database from the install which only contains the default post.

You can either import the zipped file into the original database or change your wp-config.php file to point to the new database you just set up. If it were me I'd change wp-config.php and then remove the original default database, but you might want to try both solutions above just for the extra learning you'd get from doing both.

Thanks for the advice Vangogh, unfortunately neither worked for me ??

First I tried changing the config name to a junk name just to make sure it was actually calling the right DB. When I looked a the page I got the appropriate error. …so the config is right. Next I opened myPHPAdmin and 'droped' all of the contents. (page once again gave the correct error) I then re-imported the DB. Site back up with base WP data. (ie. the only post was "hello world")

I then tried empty and re-import… same results.

I'm beginning to think I can't have exported properly since all the imports seem to behave. The thing that's throwing me is that the table "wp_prefix_aids_free_worldposts" shows 125 records. This must mean that it's my DB and not the default wp install …right?

I just noticed this DB is using wp_prefix_siteNameposts while my others are "wp_siteNameposts" Does this make a difference?

Found something!

In my DB are the following tables:
wp_posts
wp_prefix_aids_free_worldposts

WP is referencing "wp_posts" when I want it to be overwritten with the later. Droping the "wp_posts" and renaming "wp_prefix_aids_free_worldposts" to "wp_posts" should fix it!

That resolved it!

How to edit table title in myPHPAdmin:
Select the database that contains the table you want to edit. Then click on the "SQL" tab at the top of the page and enter the following:

RENAME TABLE tbl_name TO new_tbl_name

Replace tbl_name with the current table name and new_tbl_name with the name that you want to change it to.

Sorry I wasn't able to help, but I'm glad you got everything working.