04-03-2012, 04:38 PM
Alternative title : Sweaty Shirt and Upset stomach.
My father called to say he wanted something put on the Serra Website. He also pointed out that he couldn't get on the website. My first thought was "Stupid Dad, can't use the interwebs" Of course when I went to check out his website, I got the same error message he received. So I sent off messages to the service provider. Another one of my websites was having the same problem. I immediately figured conspiracy. A few months ago someone had uploaded phishing software to one of my sites. I got a call from the bank that was being defrauded and was asked to remove the offending files. I did. I decided that my site had been hacked by the phishers in retaliation.
My ISP support people said they had removed the plug-in on my Word Press sites that was causing the problem. The problem was that the plug-in was crucial to maintenance of the site. Damn those hackers. I continued to go back and forth with my ISP people who were telling me it was the Wordpress people's problem.
So I am in the mindset that things aren't great on my servers. I wondered what other sites were having problems. I checked the forum which is of course, the most important and had been acting a little freaky lately. I don't know why it sometimes jumps to mega size. In the admin section, I saw that I was a few iterations behind in the upgrade path. I decided to upgrade to hopefully clear up the problem
That was four hours ago and I just now got the site back on line. All hail the interwebs.
My usual trouble shooting m.o. is to half read the instructions and then figure out I can take it from there. I uploaded the install file, as I was supposed, and then decided maybe I should back-up before I did this. So, I deleted the install file and tried to back-up. It wouldn't let me. I kept downloading blank files as back-ups. I figured when I uploaded the install file, I also must have changed a setting.
I decided to just install and see what happened. I made a copy of the main file and did the install on a back-up file. And voila` error messages out the yin-yang. Not pretty. At least I was smart enough to do it on a copy and the real file was still safe. I opened the copy and was told the forum was unavailable. There was no link on this page to click to get to the admin section.
One of the things the forum people suggested in their FAQ section was to just upload a whole new version of the program and just swap out the config files that connect to the database. I copied and uploaded. I hit the link and got a blank page with phpBB on the top and nothing else. I am having a party. I went to the database server side and was able to see that our database was still there full of posts. It's just the Forum program didn't want to talk to it.
I reread the directions and realized I might have missed a step or ten in the upload process. I redid. I changed numbers. Ooh, look all new error messages.
I eventually I hit upon the right combination of uploads and switch positions to get the thing working. But it was a near thing today. Very near.
My father called to say he wanted something put on the Serra Website. He also pointed out that he couldn't get on the website. My first thought was "Stupid Dad, can't use the interwebs" Of course when I went to check out his website, I got the same error message he received. So I sent off messages to the service provider. Another one of my websites was having the same problem. I immediately figured conspiracy. A few months ago someone had uploaded phishing software to one of my sites. I got a call from the bank that was being defrauded and was asked to remove the offending files. I did. I decided that my site had been hacked by the phishers in retaliation.
My ISP support people said they had removed the plug-in on my Word Press sites that was causing the problem. The problem was that the plug-in was crucial to maintenance of the site. Damn those hackers. I continued to go back and forth with my ISP people who were telling me it was the Wordpress people's problem.
So I am in the mindset that things aren't great on my servers. I wondered what other sites were having problems. I checked the forum which is of course, the most important and had been acting a little freaky lately. I don't know why it sometimes jumps to mega size. In the admin section, I saw that I was a few iterations behind in the upgrade path. I decided to upgrade to hopefully clear up the problem
That was four hours ago and I just now got the site back on line. All hail the interwebs.
My usual trouble shooting m.o. is to half read the instructions and then figure out I can take it from there. I uploaded the install file, as I was supposed, and then decided maybe I should back-up before I did this. So, I deleted the install file and tried to back-up. It wouldn't let me. I kept downloading blank files as back-ups. I figured when I uploaded the install file, I also must have changed a setting.
I decided to just install and see what happened. I made a copy of the main file and did the install on a back-up file. And voila` error messages out the yin-yang. Not pretty. At least I was smart enough to do it on a copy and the real file was still safe. I opened the copy and was told the forum was unavailable. There was no link on this page to click to get to the admin section.
One of the things the forum people suggested in their FAQ section was to just upload a whole new version of the program and just swap out the config files that connect to the database. I copied and uploaded. I hit the link and got a blank page with phpBB on the top and nothing else. I am having a party. I went to the database server side and was able to see that our database was still there full of posts. It's just the Forum program didn't want to talk to it.
I reread the directions and realized I might have missed a step or ten in the upload process. I redid. I changed numbers. Ooh, look all new error messages.
I eventually I hit upon the right combination of uploads and switch positions to get the thing working. But it was a near thing today. Very near.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit