My panic attack
Comments (2) I’m not a techie, but I built this website by myself. It took hours of research and way too many late nights to create “From Military to Mom”. When I started the website, I didn’t have the money to pay a web designer and had to figure it out myself. When it all vanished in a milli-second a few days ago, I couldn’t even form the words to explain to Haus what was wrong. That’s right, opened up my site, and all my posts and pages were gone. G.O.N.E.
After searching a few forums using the tag “Posts gone”, I found that I was not alone with the disappearing act and most bloggers had their issue magically resolved in a few hours or the next day. Sweet relief, I thought. I’ll just wait till tomorrow and it will all be fixed… little Internet fairy will move on to bug someone else. The next morning, however, everything was still gone.
What should I do? I practically screamed to Haus while he was trying to watch his beloved Seahawks. I could see the response in his eyes. Build a deck, budget the money, string Christmas lights, change the oil in our vehicles, these I can help you with. Web programming? Not so much. I’m so sorry, hon, he said. Ahhhhrrhrhrhhghhh, I lamented to the computer. Alright, Alyssa, you built the website using google and forums, now fix it. I went to wordpress.org and wordpress.com first (which p.s. so you know, wordpress.org is for self-hosting sites like mine, and wordpress.com is for peeps that want to set up a wordpress blog… believe me, I know). I scoured the forums for answers and couldn’t find a contact number ANYWHERE so I called my host, GoDaddy. 24/7 support, their website boasted. We’ll just see about that.
Within a few minutes, I was connected with Ty, the GoDaddy guy. He asked me if I had backed up my database and I thought, hmmmm, would I be calling you if I backed up my database?? but instead told him that unfortunately, no, I hadn’t backed anything up for some time. After twenty minutes on hold, he told me that my files were “corrupted” and that I could either figure it out myself (he said with a smidge of disbelief) or I could pay them $150 to reenstate my website. Wait, pay you what? I asked. Pretty sure it was this point Haus yelled something not so kind to the phone about GoDaddy that Ty clearly heard. Can you blame him? The Seahawks were losing and the peeps that caused the problem were trying to charge me to fix it.
I told Ty as nicely as I could that I would call him back but hung up only after he explained to me yet again how HARD it would be for me to fix the problem. Next I phoned my friend and computer whiz, Ben, who told me to check my service agreement with GoDaddy and my database with them. I’ll give you a really quick synopsis of the thousands of words in my service agreement… GoDaddy is not responsible for anything and will charge you if you need help even if it is their fault. Nice, right? Deflated that I hadn’t just backed up my stinkin database, I was about to call Ty back and fork over $150 when I found this…
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/all-postspages-gone-in-firefox-but-fine-in-safari
Sure enough, I followed the steps that “Tech Wizard James” suggested, prayed as I ran the repair on my posts table, and BAM everything was back, restored, fixed, PERFECT! I jumped up and down and screamed I DID IT, I DID IT, I DID IT until Zeke started crying and Bubba said, Mom, you are yelling really loud. Man, oh man, I gotta tell you I’m still ecstatic that it worked. So what’s the moral of this story? Here’s my list…
1. Back-up EVERYTHING! I’ve installed a widget that will automatically send me a back-up of my database and will not continually use the export tool on wordpress to ensure I have everything saved.
2. You don’t have to be a techie to fix computer issues. Google it, read every forum you can find, don’t give up.
3. GoDaddy and other big host companies are a business. READ YOUR SERVICE AGREEMENT. After this experience, I’m looking for another host. Any suggestions?
It’s good to be back. And, I know, I know, I missed a few days this month posting… don’t worry. I’ll make up for it!
Themocracy