So Brad.. What did you do today?
Screwed up my blog, and then spent the entire day trying different ways to fix it. Once fixed, I uploaded a backup of a theme that I stupidly didn’t backup until a week ago. Then I spent time customizing the theme to what it was before.
Brad – What The Hell Happened?
I woke up this morning with an idea that I was going to implement a “Brian’s Threaded Comment” system into my comment box. Doing this, people could see my reply to each comment, and would save me time from scrolling up and down my browser to reply.
I downloaded the plugin around 10AM this morning and fiddled around with the code until I decided to save it for another time. Somehow (I actually forget, EXACTLY how it happened) I read something about Wordpress 2.7 having a way for the admin to reply to each comment.
So I was thinking.. Cool! Why not try that out? I currently had 2.6.2 and figured I might as well update.
So Why Was Your Site Down For The Entire Day?
I placed Wordpress 2.7 on my web server and configured wp-config.php to match my previous installation. Thinking everything was good, I loaded up Bradblogging.com to find a nice PHP error staring back at me. It said:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function wp() in /home/brad5019/public_html/wp-blog-header.php on line 14
I started to panic a little bit here.. Thinking, “Alright, I must of messed something up“. Another Re-Upload of the files should do it.. The same error occurred.
At this point, I deleted all of the Wordpress files and decided to install 2.7 via Fantastico (handy little program that is.. gets you up and running within seconds!) – Anyway, after configuring that, I tried to import my huge .SQL file that I had exported from my previous database. It was about 49MB in size (which is large for most blogs) and I tried to import it via PHPMYADMIN.
No Luck.. I had a timeout and the file didn’t save. So I tried copying and pasting over 10,000 lines of code into my “SQL Query” section of the database.. Only to have my browser crash on me.
Next I tried Cpanel’s “Database Restoration” service, only to get a blank .html page with nothing being done.
After that, I rinsed and repeated the above steps for about 3 hours.
Jeez.. Sounds like you were in a Pickle!
I had actually thought I had lost all of my articles, comments, etc.. which would of ruined me. Exhausted of options, I decided to turn to my web hosting provider. I submitted two tickets, and they scolded me for “Taking Advantage Of The Ticket System” – Sorry, when my blog returns nothing but PHP errors, I was a little frantic.
So I asked them if they could restore my MYSQL database into the new one that my temporary blog was using, they said:
We don’t help clients with Web Design Services – They are completely responsible for their own site. If your problem is with Wordpress, try to contact their support.
Great help they were during this ordeal! I really liked how they took the time to help me with the situation I was in. You think 3 years of purchased hosting would make them care a little.. I could rant on, but I won’t.
So I finally turned to Wordpress’s forums for help, they told me to re upload the wordpress files that I had done 3 times before. I didn’t feel like arguing so I did again.. With no luck.
If All Else Fails, Read The Instructions
So I did just that.. and forgot the fact that Wordpress usually updates their MYSQL database structure. Within seconds, Wordpress updated the database and I was sitting here typing this post about the Worst Wordpress Update… Ever.
If you are interested in seeing my “Real Time” frustrations, see http://twitter.com/bradblogging.
Morals?
- Backup your theme files… Now.
- Backup your database… Now.
- Export Your Posts, Users, etc using Wordpress’s export feature… You guessed it.. Now.
Have you ever destroyed your blog by trying to update Wordpress? If so, How did you fix it?
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34 Comments
Hi Brad I imagine your frustration. Wordpress 2.7 is buggy as hell. I had a permalink issue when I updated one of my niche blogs. Imagine all post getting a 404 error but it auto fixed itself after almost aa day. It was something about servers not reading new .htaccess. After the server read the new .htaccess every thing was ok. Still losing hours of work is scary not mentioning losing income.
Luckily, I didn’t lose income.. Just my sanity
I see you lost plugins also.
Yea I had to restore some out of my old plugins folder on my localhost. I do however, like the fact that WP 2.7 has an automatic plugin updater.. Quite handy, considering some of my plugins were 6 months old
Hi -
Sorry you had a rough experience with upgrading WP today
If you ever need a hand with Wordpress, please let me know.
Archie – I haven’t found any problems with WP 2.7, the permalink issue will have been a file permission issue, rather than a Wordpress issue?
Dually noted. Thanks for reaching out!
You should have the automatic update plugin… helps backup your stuff as well as easily update for you within a couple of steps and minutes.
Jay
I never liked the plugin, due to the fact that it had access to your FTP server.. But then again, it might of been better than what I had done
OMG, I know exactly how you feel, it is the worst feeling. And, I too had nothing but probs with 2.7. I want to tell you that you may want to switch to Hostgator. They fixed everything for me, as they always do, with endless timely support. They are fantastic and never say they “cannot” do anything, really adds a lot of peace of mind.
I hope you told off your Hosting Co.! That sucked!
I use the WP Database Backup @ http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup, it’s great, and will send to your email auto backups as you set them, daily, weekly, however you choose.
Yea, the hosting companies response during this ordeal was beyond careless. I will not recommend them to anyone – I was considering joining their affiliate program, but after stuff like that, no thanks. Too bad I bought 3 years worth.
I will definitely consider the WP Database backup plugin as a tool. Thanks for the link.
Brad, Glad to see you are back online. I had a glitch myself yesterday with an upgrade. The problem was a corrupted file hurt by a buggy FTP connection on the host end. The FTP protocol can silently fail, leaving you with a garbage file on the server. Going forward from 2.7 the auto-upgrade functionality will minimize these glitches.
PS – Some of your images are not relinked: eg, http://bradblogging.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/screen2.png
PPS — Archie, some ISPs, like GoDaddy, have a delay on recognizing .htaccess edits. WP wasn’t likely your problem.
I’ve had that happen before too.. A file thats supposed to be “X,XXX” amount of bytes is a size of “0″. Thats a bad time
About the images, I know, I’m going to fix that this weekend. Luckily, I’m subscribed to myself, so all of the posts were delivered to my email. Now it will just be as simple as copying and pasting!
What a mess Brad! I learned that lessons many time ago… Now, I back up my websites like 2 times a month…
Probably a great idea, especially with my “helpful” webhosts. lol.
Good advice Brad, sounds like it could have been a lot worse. Just setting my own website up at the mo and have been reading your blog religiously. I think I’ll look into good ways of backing my site up right this second. Scary stuff considering the time you must have put in….
Thanks Jonny. Appreciate your compliments. If you ever need some help, you know where to reach me (email).
ouch! that was one of the biggest fears when jumping up to the latest WP, the fact that so many people were getting errors like yours. I also didnt backup anything and instead managed to find some auto update plugin and worked well (i think they do a backup also). Check it out:http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/
You didn’t backup before an upgrade!? You put a lot of trust in these, “machines”.
lol…tru…but upon further inspection and checking out a weird folder on my HD, it seems that this plugin did make backup of my database before moving into the next steps…its pretty user-friendly.
Oh. Well then.. I might just have to get that plugin! Amazing what a PHP coder will do for other users – especially since it’s free!
I thought it was really bad. Some of these updates take a while to get going completely. I think it is like anything and so they will have to fix the stuff that really isn’t working to well.
You thought the WP 2.7 update was bad? Or this site being down? I agree with both of those points.
Soon they’ll come out with WP 2.7.1 and It’ll start all over again.
I feel your pain, Brad. I upgraded to 2.7 a few weeks ago, and for the first time, decided to really do an upgrade the way they tell you to do it. It worked, and I’ve had no problems with 2.7. A suggestion: I backup my database twice a day through an easy plug-in at http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup. You might want to try it. Good luck!
Twice a day? Wow. Thats definitely keeping ahead of the game. I usually never read instructions and teach myself how to do most things internet related.. But this case was special in which I decided to read the Wordpress documentation.
Thanks for the link, I’ll be sure to check it out.
I had HUGE problems in the past upgrading wordpress for bloggin-ads. I was hosted on Hostgator then, but now I’m on TopHostingCenter. THC gives free daily backups, so I pretty much never have to worry
-Mike
Thats great
I’m pretty sure I can schedule daily backups as well with Cpanel, but I haven’t configured it yet!
Hmmm.. I guess ther support team was a lil rude huh? Anyway that happened to me before but its a diffrent case because my blog was hacked and I had no backups then. I was just lucky, god loves me and gave me friends that can really help…
I really don’t understand why they had to be like that.. There are hundreds of thousands of internet webhosts on the internet, and to not offer something that your competitors would.. makes you inferior doesn’t it? Stupid idea on their part – But then again, It’s not like I’m going to need them very much..
Hello Brad,
After reading your article i remembered my day when i upgraded my wordpress to 2.7 and had mess wih all plugin compatibility.But once i get along everything i thought it is worth it.Website became much faster.
Well it was a very nice experience to get along with the code as i am a web developer i can figure out where the mess could be.
Well anyways it seems that you are out of the problem so happy blogging. And i love the way you wrote the article it made me to read entire article and cant stop myself on commenting on it
!!!
Regards,
Sam.
Welcome to the BradBlogging Blog, Samir.
I’m glad you enjoyed reading the article, I tried to use headings and bolded keywords to keep the reader interested.. Besides, an organized article is a lot easier to read than just one big chunk of text.
Hello Brad,
I enjoyed reading your blog, this article and great comments. I use this type of information as a tutorial.
I’m searching for how to resolve my recent one-click install on Dreamhost. Everything seemed ok until i tried to login to WP where my profile doesn’t exist. However, during the one-click installation, I received a login password. The same password that does not work.
My question is should I delete and reinstall WP from the WP site?
Or should I create the identical blog through WP and try to access my site without deleting the original installation files. I don’t want to make it any worse.
This snafu is wasting a lot of my time, so whichever is quickest. Thanks in advance for any advice!
Also, I apologize if this is not the right place to ask, but you all seem to be extremely adept at WP. I’m having problems aligning images, i.e., adding space between images and content paragraphs. I used hspace, but it didn’t help…text remains behind photos. This, too, has to be resolved yesterday. Thanks, again!
Hmmm… could a plugin be making things off? What about captcha?
Personally, I’d install with Fantastico. It works perfectly for me and has never failed.
If you don’t have fantastico, I’d reinstall from the wordpress site.
I also wouldn’t use captcha
Email me if you want to talk more about these things!
Hi, first sorry for my bad English.
I’m a reader of your blog from Spain.
I make web’s apps for some companies and usually my application’s users are typical “lusers”.
What I do for cover myself is:
A daily cron with a mysqldump command, I export all my database (structure and data) to a non public dir, for sample “/home/myuser/backups/”with date. (i.e.: mydatabase_27012009.sql)
And another daily cron with a “Rsync” command for sincronize all generated data and have a backup too, in case of a wordpress blog, I think that you must rsync your “wp-content” folder.
So if a disaster happens or our site is defeated we have the backup of last day like good admins that we are
Good blog!
Cristian
Thats an awesome strategy. Then if they run into trouble, you can charge them for it and it only takes you like 10 mins to fix..
Easy Money
– Welcome to the blog! I hope to see you back soon. 
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