It’s back…sort of

As you’ve surely noticed, the blog looks different. I’ve installed WordPress to see how I like using this software (so far, so good). The old stuff is gone until my host gets the data back.

This is actually a good excuse to make a few changes. Maybe change the color scheme, or add a logo. Or sell some T-shirts. Or start a coup. Whatever you think would be good.

Short version of story:
Last week, a bunch of config files for the website were overwritten by the host, breaking the software. Uninstalled and reinstalled Serendipity (that’s the blog software). Tried to restore the blog’s database backup, but got an error. Contacted host; they “restored” the backup. The blog database was empty. I wrote back noting this. Their response:

Hi there,
Our technicians confirmed that they backed up the data available and expressed to me their concern that the tables were empty in the database that was restored.
I am sure this isn’t what you are wanting to get. Please let us know if you need further assistance.

Um, yes, I need more assistance. I need the blanking backup to work! Before this morning, I was frustrated at the blog being down, but was confident it would be up soon. That last response, though, actually made me angry (and that doesn’t happen often). Are they not going to try to figure out why the backup failed?

Until that’s resolved, all the old stuff is gone :_-(

Long version of story:

<flashback>A few months ago, the blog software was throwing up. I asked the web host about it, and they basically said, “We didn’t make the software; we can’t help you.” (Not blaming them; it really isn’t their job. However, they do offer Serendipity as part of their application suite, so it’s not like I uploaded some random program.) Thrown on my own resources, my research determined that changing a bit of code would solve the issue. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the permissions to change any of the files. So I requested a chmod on the directory, which the host quickly granted, and I fixed the issue.</flashback>

Now back to several days ago. The blog would show a blank page, but the other pages worked. At first, I thought maybe there was just some temporary oddball issue, but after 24 hours of this, this was clearly not the case. I looked at the files in the blog directory, and a bunch of them were changed on May 20. Aha! I wrote to the webhost asking them if they had made any changes. Some lady wrote back saying that my question was “confusing” since they didn’t create Serendipity.

Argh.

So I wrote back, expanding on and clarifying my question. Then I checked out the files. One of the config files had an error, preventing the page from loading. Once I removed the offending line, everything should have been good to go…right? Well, when loading the page, it would redirect to a random porn site.

Ignoring the few of you that may have preferred that, I reinstalled Serendipity, which wiped out the database containing all the blog entries, settings, etc. (Yes, I did a backup first!) The problem now is that there’s an issue with the backup restoration…so I have to wait on the host to get back to me on that.

Not only that, I tried to make a post, but no dice. I had to get them to chmod the serendipity directory again (they said I now had the power to chmod stuff in the webapps directory, but apparently that didn’t apply to any subfolders).

Then, this morning, I got the response on the backup issue (see above), which was less than helpful. (“The backup didn’t work. You didn’t want that. Do you need anything else?”)

So I installed WordPress, which, frankly, I’m rather liking. And wrote this rant.