Hi Geoffrey,
Of course.Anyone got any ideas...?
Use MySQLDumper instead of phpmyadmin. It is free! - no cost
A PHP script has a maximum execution time that is usually set to 30 seconds on most server installations. A script running longer than this limit will simply stop working. This behavior makes backing up large databases impossible. Maybe you already had this specific problem when using other tools.
MySQLDumper uses a proprietary technique to avoid this problem.
In my opinion, the best tool to backup and restore large databases.
Best regards
Steffen