Well that was a fiasco.
The plan was to upgrade WordPress – my blogging platform – because I wanted the latest version, primarily for security reasons. And also because if you’re current, you get new features and add-ons. And also because my trackback feature had broken and I hoped an upgrade might fix it.
I was already several versions behind because every time I planned to upgrade, I chickened out at the last minute.
I spent much of Sunday doing backups, because you should always back up your files before messing with stuff. There were several places I could do backups: from the admin part of my blog, from my web host’s site control panel, from Fantastico, and from my good old familiar FTP software.
You can never be too safe, so I performed all four backups several times each. Because I’m paranoid. And also because I was procrastinating about that fateful moment when I would push the critical button, because I had a Very Bad Feeling about how this was going to go.
In the process, I discovered a flaw in FTP: it won’t display or download more than 2,000 files in any directory. I had 3,000 files in my WP-content directory.
I spent hours downloading and testing other FTP programs, all of which shared this same flaw, so finally I FTP’d my files using filters, one letter at a time through the alphabet.
It felt so primitive.
Then I procrastinated some more because of the Very Bad Feeling. (The problem with gut feelings like that is you don’t know whether you’re being paranoid or psychic.)
Finally I drank two glasses of shiraz, threw caution to the wind, and pushed the stupid button.
Seconds later, Fastastico, the auto-installer, cheerfully told me the upgrade was complete.
“Wow,” I said, “that was easy.”
A little too easy.
I hit the refresh button on my blog, and instead of seeing my friendly sheep peering down at me, I saw an ugly error message about some fatal error with Tag Warrior. (Tag Warrior is a blog plugin.)
Fastastico then provided me with a list of eight simple steps for restoring my blog.
Most of the steps involved deleting all remnants of my blog. This didn’t feel good. The sixth step was to empty all my databases. That made me queasy.
The seventh step was to import my backup.sql file from my hard drive into my blog’s database using phpMyAdmin, which lives on the server.
It chugged along for a bit before it failed.
It said my backup file was too large. I checked the documentation: it was four times larger than the program could handle. (What kind of idiot program lets you create a backup it can’t use and then doesn’t even warn you??)
On Monday I opened a support ticket with my web host, which they ignored.
I tried a few things. None of them worked. I began to despair of ever finding a solution. I began to wonder if my backups were corrupt or incomplete. I began to wonder if my 800+ blog posts were gone forever. I began to question whether I would just throw in the blogging towel if that were the case, or if I’d start over again.
Throughout all this, I was having unrelated technical difficulties at work and on the Mac (it kept dropping its wireless connection to the internet via my PC and then piggy-backing itself onto my neighbour’s really slow network.) I was getting cranky.
But also throughout it all, people kept sending me messages of encouragement, jokes, links, poetry, pictures, videos, suggestions and offers of help. It kept me sane and I thank you for that. You guys are the best, and I’m not just saying that either.
On Tuesday night I finally picked up the phone and called my web host in wherever they are and spoke to a real live human being named Carl. He was friendly and helpful and competent and within 20 minutes he’d imported my backup.sql file and performed step 8 for me. Bells rang and flags flew and fireworks went off and people danced in the streets and my sheep came frolicking back into view and peered down at me!
I was giddy with relief. I told Carl I loved him. Today I even phoned his boss and told him how wonderful Carl was.
Lessons Learned:
- Time is elastic. Two days can seem like four when something that matters to you is in peril.
- You should deactivate all your plugins before you attempt to upgrade your blog.
- You should keep up to date with your blog upgrades, so that automated upgrades won’t fail. If you wait until you’re many versions behind, you’ll have to do it manually.
- You should always have a backup, a Plan B, some good friends, nerves of steel, and plenty of wine on hand.
That’s my advice to you. As for me, I will never ever attempt to upgrade my blog again. I’ll just leave well enough alone and if it ain’t broke, I won’t be trying to fix it.
But I do wish I had the latest version.
Once you have upgraded to the latest version (2.7), from then on in, Widpress allows automatic upgrades – no more having to FTP stuff back and forth.
That said.. you can still do that here. I recommend getting a plugin called WordPress Automatic Upgrade, which prior to 2.7 has allowed folks to do exactly that.
Once you use this and get 2.7 running, you can deactivate this plugin. But this should help you get to it in the meanwhile without having to do FTP stuff.
If anything at all good can come out of this (aside from Carl possibly getting a promotion), you can feel comforted in knowing that there are probably many others besides me who have learned from your mistakes. I will never upgrade. Thank you and bless you for being the canary
I’m with XUP. I will never upgrade either. I don’t know if my web host has a Carl.
You guys should not be scared of upgrading over 1 bad experience.
By the way.. if the homepage for that WordPress Automatic Upgrade isn’t loading.. just go into the plugins page on your dashboard and type in a search for it.. and it should take you to where you can download it.
(and I can tell you… the upgrade is worth it. WP 2.7 is a superior make over anything before it)
If you’d like, folks.. I can do a manual upgrade to 2.7 for you using FTP I’ve done it a slightly different way then what WordPress has been recommending (which Debra over at April Reign first alerted me to on doing it this way) and I’ve NEVER had any problems upgrading using that method.
So.. if you’re interested .. get ahold of me via email or some other method (Skype, Windows Live Messenger) and we can chitchat about it.
Glad to see you’re back up! Should that title be, “My Sheep and I Are Back!” ?
Cheers!
techwood…roltflmao
Zoom, Rob asked if you tried shutting down and rebooting…it is supposed to work according to a webmaster that we know.
Not upgrading is a bad mistake which affects your security and ability to use plugins.
however,version 2.0.4 no wonder it failed!!!
You need to upgrade to each trunk like 2.1,2.2 etc. instalments. Otherwise it is like putting a hemi on a model T.
You can find the legacy files you need here
http://wordpress.org/download/release-archive/
and you can try filezilla client for your ftp program
http://filezilla-project.org/
Jeez, I’m doomed. I also have 2.0.4. I agree with zoom though: If it ain’t broke, there is no reason to fix it.
It’s nice to see those smiling sheep back again.
Happy blogging in the new year.
Remember when just trying to write stuff down didn’t involve all nine of the geekly circles of pluperfect computerized hell at once?
Yeah. Me neither.
Glad you’re back. I brought mint sauce.
“Glad you’re back. I brought mint sauce.”
I don’t know whether to be highly disturbed, or to laugh uncontrollably. Probably a bit of both is in order!
Glad you survived the ordeal, Zoom! And might I say, that dogcat of yours is so gorgeous! (I was comforted to see his furry face while the rest of the blog was in doomland!)
Hmmm…I see that you drank Shiraz, but there’s no mention of cat therapy in any of this. Duncan will tell you that you should have spent more time stroking him and less time drinking Shiraz. One of you would have at least been better off 😛
Glad you’re back. Happy, tech problem free New Year!
I believe in upgrading – I’ve seen a lot of hacked blogs as a result of not keeping up with them. Many of the updates will be security related and thus should be applied sooner rather than later.
Oh thanks for the tip on the FTP limitations. I’d have never guessed something as mature as FTP would have that limitation.
Cheers!
From prowling around the Filezilla forums I learned that the 2000 item limit isn’t an FTP limit, it’s a server limit. Carl could remove it if you asked him nicely.
Holy cow! Zoom – I know you as an intelligent, articulate, perceptive, funny and sensitive woman with a wonderful writing style and the sweetest cat on the internet. Now I know you also have way more computer brain than I will ever be able to understand. Congratulations on surviving this ordeal. I’m glad you’re back!
First of all, thanks to all of you for welcoming me back. I missed the comments most of all (after the sheep, of course).
Scott, thanks very much for your generous offer to help me upgrade to 2.7. I think I’m going to take you up on it.
XUP, I don’t think you need to worry about upgrading since you’re on the wordpress network. It’s only self-hosted wordpress bloggers like Robin and me who need to upgrade. (But there are advantages to being self-hosted too – like you have a lot more flexibility over your blog.)
Robin, you have an advantage in that your blog is primarily made up of images. Even at my darkest hour, I knew I still had copies of all my images, but I didn’t know where my words were.
Techwood, you’re right of course, but I made a conscious decision to be grammatically wrong. (It’s okay to make grammar mistakes if you do it on purpose.)
Deb, I told you guys that rebooting works 95% of the time when the problem is on your own computer!
April Reign, welcome, and thanks for the tips. Filezilla was one of the ftp programs I tried and which hit the 2000 file limit. You know, I did do an incremental upgrade one time (just a single increment) and then wondered if I’d done something wrong because the version # in my footer didn’t match the version number fantastico reported me having.
Oma, thank you. I’ve always maintained that if you want to make someone happy, take away everything they have and then give some of it back. I think I discovered a renewed appreciation for my blog this week.
Coyote, that mint sauce comment caught me totally off-guard and I burst out laughing when it sunk in a few seconds later.
Arden, he’s an usually diabolical yet civilized coyote. Just for you and Elmaks, I’m going to repost that picture of Duncan tonight. I found it comforting too when my blog was down.
Melinda, don’t worry, Duncan got plenty of strokes while the blog was down. And he joined me in the off glass of shiraz too (only he has his from a bowl).
Techwood – yeah, security fears were what started all this. Fear of losing my blog ultimately led to me destroying my blog.
Robin – really? I asked my web host about that BEFORE I pushed the button and they said it couldn’t be done.
Megabytes – what a lovely comment! Thank you. (Duncan says thank you too.)
zoom, you have must made me even more grateful for my in-house Webgeek than I already was.
oops, I mean you have JUST made me more grateful…
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