As all of my regular readers will have noticed, this blog has been down for three weeks. I won’t go into all the details but just to say that this came about through a situation that was out of my control. I almost lost my domain name and all the work I have done in the last two years (since I launched deviousdiva dot com). As you can imagine, I have been frantic to save it. After three weeks of almost total desperation, my blog came back online last night. I keep opening my home page and just staring at it, hardly believing how close I came to losing the whole thing. I have realised many things over this time. I am again reminded how precious this site is to me. I was touched by the concern and support of my blog community. I have some great friends out there.
While I was facing the possibility of starting over from scratch, I really looked at what I could be losing. The discussions between people, however difficult and annoying they can be, are important. They are a tiny snapshot of this specific moment in time. This blog is also a kind of journal of my life too. One aspect of it but still no less precious. It represents hundreds of hours not only of writing and posting but also reading, researching, commenting on other people’s blogs and community building. I am proud of that. Not the numbers of visitors (although that’s nice too) but the strength of mine and your commitment to the issues here.
I want to thank everyone who has emailed, twittered and facebooked me. You asked me how I was, not just what was up with the blog and that was really touching. Thank you to everyone who offered advice, support and help. I really really appreciate that. I am going to be looking into ways of ensuring that this doesn’t happen again. I need to jump over that final hurdle of taking total control over my blog and becoming technically competent enough to deal with the problems that arise. I ONLY feel like I can do that because I have friends out there who are willing to help me through it. Thank you so much.
I had intended to write a password-protected post on what I have been up to in real life too but those projects are over for now. I will post about them if there are any new developments.
Now, it’s back to regular blogging…
Technorati Tags: blog, blogging, server, technical, twitter, facebook
Time for Banning on December 15th, 2009
Welcome Notice on December 14th, 2009
Community News on March 17th, 2009
Blog Changes on January 16th, 2009
Links Updated on December 20th, 2008
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I’m glad you got your blog back! A good starting point for learning how to back up your Wordpress installation (especially your customized plugins and themes) AND your data (articles, comments, links) is http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups. Feel free to PM me if you get stuck.
Phew! I was starting to get serious withdrawal symptoms there!
Thanks oriste !
I have just installed WP-phpMyAdmin and that gives me access to my database but I have absolutely no idea what to do with it now! Or is it enough to use the built-in wordpress export function which gives you an xml file?
@pj
Phew is the right word ! lol
ZARDOZ ,,,
my prayers to the matrix gods ,
WERE ANSWERED.!
Welcome back. Actually I was looking for a better punchline (‘give them hell’ was an idea) but that really says it all.
@deviousdiva I’ve never used the WP-phpMyAdmin plugin, I always got for phpMyAdmin in the hosting control panel. Most web hosting plans include such a control panel (like cPanel or Plesk, the 2 most popular). I don’t know which one Dreamhost is offering.
I also noticed that WP-phpMyAdmin is relatively old (Last Updated: 2007-8-20) and compatible up to WP version 2.2.2 only. I would assume that your version of WP is higher than that (I’m currently at 2.7.1 and 2.8 is just around the corner). I will try and install it on my blog and see what I can learn from it.
@ZARDOZ
I knew I could count on you and the matrix gods! Cheers
@st3pp3nw0lf
Both are great. Thank you
@oriste
I still cannot access my server because someone else set everything up for me (That’s been the main problem because they have disappeared). You are right. My version is not the latest but the one before. Again, waiting for my blog help to upgrade for me. Once I get hold of him, I am going to see if I can get full control so that this doesn’t happen again. In the meantime, I am seeing what I can do without access to the server!
Thank you so much for your help. Really appreciated.
@deviousdiva Your blog help should definitely give you all the userids and passwords used to access your hosting panel on Dreamhost. The same goes for your domain name control panel if that is registered with another registrar. There is absolutely not one single reason whatsoever not to do that. I’m furious in your stead that he didn’t do that already from the start. Totally unacceptable in my book!
Sorry to blast off like that, now back to the agenda. The built-in WP export function which produces an XML file is one way to export your data, but I prefer a real database dump (like phpMyAdmin offers). It also keeps the sequential auto-numbering of the records and somehow that makes me feel more comfortable. Plus it’s faster. I’m old school.
I installed and tested the WP-phpMyAdmin plugin on my site. It works sometimes and it doesn’t some other times. When it works it does what it is supposed to do. Sometimes however it throws me back to a login screen where I need to enter the user-id and password OF THE DATABASE. This user-id and password is set in a file called “wp-config.php”. If you don’t have access to the server (with FTP e.g.) you will not know what to enter there. It might be the same user-id/password that you use to access the WP admin panel, but it could be something completely different (as it is in my case for extra security).
Let’s assume that it will work for you and won’t ask for a user-id/password:
What you need to do after installing and activating it, is go to the Tools section in the left-hand menu. There you will see a new menu item, called “phpMyAdmin”. Click that and you should be presented with a screen that looks exactly like the one before last image on the page that I mentioned before (http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups). Your WP database should be selected automatically (it will show you a bunch of tables that all start with “wp_”). Click on the “Export” tab and you should see a screen which looks like the last image on that same page.
DON”T USE ANY OF THE OTHER OPTIONS (as this will most likely throw you back into the login screen).
Set all the settings as instructed in the last paragraph of the aforementioned page. Most likely you can just “Select All” (under point 1). Make sure all the other checkboxes (under point 2-3-4) are set as in the picture. You can safely set the radio button (point 5) to “gzipped”, as that will result in a smaller file transfer. Then hit the button “Go” (6). You should be asked for a LOCAL file and folder where to save this file. It will normally only take a few seconds to finish.
Keep this file in a safe place. You might want to add a date to the file name on your local computer. This file can be used again to restore your database by using the tab “Import” (as opposed to “Export” as you just did) to create an exact mirror copy of your data as it was when you exported it. The “Export” can be executed as often as you want, always remembering to rename the resulting file to a unique (date-stamped) name in case you want to keep several generations of the database.
When you’re done, there isn’t an elegant way to drop back into the WP admin panel. Using the browser button is not a good idea as it will try to execute some of the steps you went through before. Just close the browser window (or tab) of phpMyAdmin and open a new one to go back to your WP admin panel in the way you are used to do it.
If all that doesn’t work, by all means, use the WP Export function to generate a XML file. It is better than having no backup at all.
Good luck!
@oriste
Thank you so much for your detailed reply. I can’t even pretend to follow half of it now. Too many hours on the computer ! Just to let you know that my blog help is going to help me go it alone. I’ve just heard from him and he is going to help me with the transfer. I will probably have to put small ads back on my blog to make enough money at least to cover hosting costs but it’s a small price to pay to be in control. I hope you don’t mind if I call on you in the future for tech help? I promise not to be too annoying !
I wouldn’t mind at all, in fact I would be honoured to be able to contribute in my own little way to the causes that you care for so deeply.
Nice recovery DD. Glad you managed to save all you work. Well done and welcome back.
Hey, welcome back. And here I was, thinking you were just fed up…
I’m glad to see that you and your wonderful blog are up and running once again. You provide invaluable information. Thank you!