The last week or so has been somewhat of a wild ride with this blog. I’m technically oriented, but by no means a wiz at blogging software and databases. Unfortunately I probably know just enough to be dangerous, which led to the events of the past week. In the process, though, I’ve learned some valuable lessons.
The Mistakes Begin
I caught the WordPress theme bug and started trying out different themes in an effort to change the look of my blog. I wanted to see if a three-column theme would work, and in the process of experimenting with John TP’s TripleK2 theme I accidentally clicked the Uninstall K2 Theme button. The theme reverted to the default, but when I went to reselect the TripleK2 theme, all the sidebar modules were gone. They were even gone with the normal K2 theme!
So what do I decide to do then and there? Upgrade from WordPress 2.2 to 2.3!!
I guess I thought that if I was going to go through the trouble of fixing something, I may as well REALLY fix it with an entire blog upgrade.
Big Mistake.
Having already successfully upgraded from WordPress 2.0 to 2.2 earlier this year, I went through the same process. But this time, when I went to look at the blog after the upgrade I got an error message and no blog.
Trying to Keep Cool
The next 48 hours were a panic frenzy as I worked to restore things. Throughout the whole time I kept reminding myself that in the grand scheme of things this wasn’t really a big deal, and besides, one way or another everything was going to work out. I’m not sure I can relate everything that I did but I’m going to try to share the main parts.
Things were going from bad to worse so I restored everything from my last backup, which was on September 8. But for some reason, the K2 theme was still broken in that the K2 side bar modules were not appearing, so I had to switch to the customized default WordPress theme.
Since I was still determined to install the latest versions, I again attempted an upgrade to WordPress 2.3 and also installed the updated K2.0RC1 theme. The K2 side bar modules were still broken.
Data Base Problems
I made one last attempt to get things closer to where I was (theme-wise) before all this started happening. I reinstalled the down level WordPress 2.2.3 and then also reinstalled the original K2 theme (0.95RC1) that I had on my hard drive. Ahhhhh … that seemed to work. The side bar modules that I had created were all there, restored from who knows where.
But then I started to get database error messages on the blog as well as on the WordPress admin panel, pointing to the comment table. After searching through online forums I found out how to repair a database table and, after a couple of repair attempts, managed to fix the problem. How did the table get corrupted in the first place? Not sure, but the fact that I accidentally upgraded the database before the blog software was fully installed might have had something to do with it.
Dealing with a Stale Blog
So now the only problem was that this blog was reset back to September 8. Three weeks worth of comments and posts (well, only a couple of posts) were gone. Fortunately, I still had all the e-mail notifications that contained the contents of each comment so I was able to basically reconstruct everyone’s comments from the missing weeks.
I then took another chance and reinstalled the TripleK2 theme that I was happy with before all this began. Yes! It worked!
So, as I kept telling myself, things worked out OK. I just had to give up (for now) the idea of upgrading to WordPress 2.3 as well as using the latest K2 theme (which is supposed to support three columns). I don’t know why those two aren’t working for me, but perhaps later I’ll feel brave enough to give them another try.
The Permalink Snafu
Of course I couldn’t leave well enough alone. After following a recent MyBlogLog visitor’s link and then reading several blog suggestions from Alan at SEOImage, I decided to change the permalink structure of my blog posts. I thought that this would only affect new posts but it wasn’t until the end of the day that I noticed that it affected all my posts. This meant that if anyone clicked on a link that used the old permalink format, they would get a 404 error message instead of the post!
Yeah, I’m my own worst enemy.
After some web searching I came across a couple of plugins that let me redirect posts from the old permalink structure to the new one. Problem solved.
Summary of Things I Learned
- Never try to upgrade an unstable blog.
Stabilize the down level blog first – upgrading will not necessarily fix a problem. - Perform regular backups of both your blog files as well as your database.
Database backups are pretty quick so I plan on doing that even more often – say, once a week. - When updating your blog software, be sure that you have completely uploaded the new files before running the database upgrade program. Duh.
- If you get a database error that points to a particular table, you can usually repair the table using your web host management software.
- If you change the permalink structure of your posts, be sure to redirect from the old structure to the new structure.
Two good WordPress plugins for that are Dean’s Permalink Migration and Permalink Redirect.
Ohhhh dear! I’m so sorry to hear of your tech problems! I’m so NOT tech inclined that I am surprised I have not had these sorts of issues. But then again, I have no idea how to even attempt such things! I guess my ignorance saves me! LOL!
On the bright side… you didn’t smash your computer or give up… (smile)!
Glad all is now well!
Hugs,
jen
That sounds like a blogger’s worst nightmare! *hugs*
You just fueled my fear of updating WordPress!
Glad to see that you figured out the problems.
I am aware that my technical skills on the web aren’t that great so I will only update my software when something BIG is added – or the version 3 is reached. Until then, if things work I’ll let them work.
Hi Jennifer. No I didn’t smash the computer, thanks. But it did take some effort not to get too bummed. That alone was a good exercise.
Jody, I hope not to have to go through that again. Hopefully I’m a little wiser and was able to share some useful information.
Hey Armannd. I’ve read some comments on the forums about WP 2.3 being a little quirky so I think I just got bit. I’m with you, though, in just leaving things as is for awhile.
Glad you have it all back. Thanks for sharing lessons learned!
For fear of wrecking things and for want of avoiding the headache and possible mess, I don’t know when/if I’ll ever upgrade my wordpress software.
But glad to see you made it out alive!
And BTW, I am jealous of the 3-column theme! Looks great.
While I do still like the general look of my blog, I feel there is a real lack of real estate with only two columns.
Hi Mark, unfortunately I don’t think I’ve learned my lesson in that I still get tempted to tweak things here and there.
Ben, thanks for the compliment on the theme. The three columns do require a wider browser window, which is one trade-off, plus now there is the temptation of loading it with more clutter. I do like the appearance of your blog in that it has a very polished look.