Wordpress: Import blog posts / users from another database

[pealo86]

I am performing some maintenance on one of my websites by making the changes on a local copy of the website and testing it that way.

 

Before I set the changes live I will need to make sure that I don't overwrite any users that have registered on the live website over the last couple of weeks, along with any posts they have made.

 

I was thinking that the only tables I'd need to back up were:

 

    * wp_users

    * wp_usermeta

    * wp_postmeta

    * wp_posts

 

But after trying this, it just completely broke my template (note: I was sure to update any urls in the db so that they matched the location of my local installation), so I'm guessing I may need to import something else also.

 

I have tried Wordpress' built in feature of exporting / importing posts, but I ended up with lots of duplicate posts the first time. The second time I tried removing most of my posts and then importing them again, but then it only imported a tiny portion of my posts for some reason.

 

Therefore I have basically lost faith in Wordpress' own import / export capability and am thinking I best do it through MySQL, but am not sure where to go next.

 

Any advice would be great