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I was so inspired by my friend Dave's almost pleasant experience updating his website software that I decided to give it a go on my site.
If you are not faint of heart continue on for the gory details.
10 PM.
The air is heavy and still. A dog howls in the darkness. The shadow of a blackbird hovering outside my window falls ominously over the keyboard while in the distance the faint scratching sound of a black cat trying to get inside to cross my path.
I'm busy and don't notice. I've got an update to do.
- Begin by finding the updates I need and downloading them. To be safe, decide to do each update individually (there were several... I really should keep up with this).
- Read directions for first update - just upload two files, simple enough.
- Upload done - website still working. Whew!
- Read directions for next update. Four directories and a hundred or so files to upload. Still pretty straight forward.
- Upload files as directed. Oops. Had the directory overwrite option selected on my ftp program instead of merge. Should I panic? Best check the website and see...
- Ummmm.... no website - only config error pages. No home, no admin, no login. Great.
- Checked phpMyAdmin and yes, all SQL tables & data are/is there so, okay, I can possibly fix this.
- Try checking the help forums - no luck.
- Make panic phone call to Dave for helpful brainstorming and get his machine. He's either:
a) not there
b) asleep
c) watching dvd's and doesn't want to be interrupted dammit
Leave fairly calm message: "If you're not busy..."
- Try a few more things. Yey! One edit to config.php works - I have achieved home page!
- Leave message with Dave signalling the all clear.
- Recheck the site to make sure everything is okay so I can go to bed. Uh oh. I have a home page but none of my links work! ... !!!! Crimeny!
- Try going directly to a page by hardcoding the web address. No dice.
Crap!
Crap. Crap. Cappity-crap.
...
Wait a minute. I have a backup of all my web files so, no problem, just load the backup version of the four directories I over-wrote and then reload the new folders using merge this time. Whew. (Hmmm... no exclamation point this time. I think I'm losing confidence)
- Load the four folders from the backup. Whew again (rather premature don't you think?) - now my website is just like it was before the minor update.
Well, no. Still no working links, modules or components. In short, I can't get at ANY of my content.
- Try adding a new menu item for the Glossary component. It doesn't work. How can that be - IT'S NEW FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!
- Research problem on web - nothing works. OMG (emphasize by dramatically wringing hands).
- Well, there's nothing for it but to upload the entire home directory backup. Maybe there was a script I didn't see that changed some other files...
- Upload all of home folder backup.
- Recheck website - still FUBAR.
2 AM.
Panic sets in.
I mean real panic. Cold sweat, chest-tightening, "Oh my God, am I going to have to rebuild this entire website" panic.
- Web research again - nothing works.
- Reload the backup folders just in case. No luck.
- Send panic email to Dave but know he won't see it until tomorrow. Doesn't he know how important this is??
Beginning to hyperventilate.
Huff, huff, gasp. Huff, huff, gasp. Fer Chris' sake where's that paper bag.
- Poke about in phpMyAdmin but too afraid to actually change anything. On the plus side, I find out how to add my own SQL tables...
- More tweaking to config and .htaccess. Change more permissions. Check forums and try all suggestions. Getting closer - it seems to be an SEO problem. SEO that's the setting that changes long ugly web addresses into nice, clean, easy to read ones. Everything works when SEO setting is turned off but then Google can't find me because all the web addresses are different. Reset SEO several times but it doesn't fix the problem. On, off, on, off ... as if somehow the next time will make everything oooh kayyyy.
So, enough already. Suffice it to say that it was six hours of teeth gnashing and pants peeing (yes, I said it) followed by...
Success! As you can see, my original website is back online and working.
Now to install that update... |
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