The host of this blog no longer permits customers to use phpmyadmin to access the database directly, so flying blind and depending on a lot of time and assistance from the tech support guy at the host who responded to my ticket, we put our heads together to sort it all out.

Three days later, after scouring the WordPress Codex, The WordPress Forums, and taking a look at the minimum requirements for installing, tech guy and I discovered it was an older version of MySql running on their server that created the inability for blog to communicate fully with the database. Moved to another server, problem solved.

Thank you, tech guy.

It’s worth mentioning that the info on minimum server requirements I found on WordPress.org might be outdated with regard to 2.9.2. That info says the server must be running MySql version 4.1.2 or greater. Host had my blog on a server running 4.1.7 already, but when he moved it to another one running MySQL 5.1.33, that fix worked and solved all database related issues.

That tip was not easily found in my searching, but here’s hoping this will help someone else who runs up against the same issue.

1. failure to use a condom
2. volcanic eruptions
3. buying imported foods
4. the earth’s tilt
5. leaving the lights on when leaving a room
6. wildfires
7. running unnecessary errands in your car

Though some are natural events and others intentional/unintentional human activities, all can engender consequences which contribute to climate change.

Whether or not you believe climate change is happening, and regardless of your stance on this subject as  policitically polarizing (or not),  here are some data, courtesy of the World Resources Institute’s Sustainability House graph:

• 13.5% of greenhouse gas emissions are transportation related

• Another 13.5% comes from agricultural activities

• 24.6% of these emissions are from electricity and heat

• 10.4% are industrial

• 18.2% are related to changes in land use

Yale’s recent project Global Warming’s 6 Americas 2009: An Audience Segmentation Analysis determined that we are extremely segmented in our beliefs and understanding of this issue. The project determined that we can be divided into 6 separate Americas based on our perceptions of the reality/unreality and extent of this problem and regarding whether individual change or national policy is the solution. Reading the report is a good place to start in deciding where you fall on this 6 Americas continuum.

What can an individual do about climate change?

And, by the way, where do I get off discussing this subject in a non-political blog?

8 years as a middle school science teacher prior to my present career has, I hope, informed some of the household practices we have always adhered to: no paper towels or plates, no tissues (we use cloth hankies), no disposable diapers, and composting wherever we have lived.

You’re probably already doing what you think you need to do but if you have questions, you could just spend an afternoon with my husband, Don, the resident energy czar. If you can’t track him down (he is probably checking our water barrels or installing more weatherstripping), just follow some of these principles at work and home:

• Teach your friends and family that in your home, you practice the good old 3 Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

• Update your appliances so that they have earned Energy Star ratings

• Turn off your computer when not in use

• Seal and insulate your home

• Use water efficiently in and around your home

• Monitor your tire pressure

As for me, I am NOT an expert and I am NOT an activist, just a person from one of those 6 Americas who today  lives and works in a house on a well, with a low water use washing machine and a hybrid vehicle in the driveway. And a person who tries not to be wasteful but who probably is in many unacknowledged ways. For instance:

All of us entrepreneur types go to meetings at places like coffeehouses: do we bring our own coffee mug along?

We stay in touch with our clients and colleagues on computers that are likely ALWAYS on: is that necessary?

Learning more

Here is more information if you’re ready to change some personal habits this year, or if you concluded this problem is larger than what changes in personal habits can accomplish:
Climate Change Communication
Do Personal Changes Matter? Yes Yes Yes
Clean, Green and Fair to Everyone
Taking Personal Responsibility for Climate Change
Creating a Personal Plan for Climate Change Part 2: Taking Political Action

And speaking of that, here are some related posts from the Loosely Speaking archives:

58 Hankies: Going Green in the Home Office
Best of Blog Action Day 2008
Blog Action Day 2008
Pick Your Issue and Drive it Home (Blog Action Day 2007)

If you’ve decided that blogs are so 2008, think again.

I just watched a great 8-part video series on Build a Better Blog, presented by Denise Wakeman of “The Blog Squad” fame. The series is called 5 Tactics for Small Business Blog Success.

Check it out!

Speaking of this, here are some earlier posts from the Loosely Speaking Archives:

• Has your blogging post waned?
• How to convert a static web site to a WordPress blog site
• Choose Wisely: your blogging platform, that is
• Does anyone in your town know about your blog?
• Love and Fear on the road to successful blogging

I know, WP experts will advise me that it wasn’t magic but rather misbehavior of a dormant plugin or something else I did or misjudged. And I acknowledge that: remember, I blog for the pleasure of sharing ideas and news and am not a technical writer.

Ahem. That said, I am a pretty geeky chick, but sometimes these updates just seem like a magical mystery tour.

Yesterday I discovered I’d been largely de-indexed by Google (again) due to a hacker’s evil redirect. Now, this has happened before so I calmly investigated my code upon noticing a dramatic SERP drop. Spotting the offending base-64 code, I sliced it out and wrote a request for reconsideration to Google.

But then I faced the inevitable: I have to update WordPress again, if only for security purposes.

I used ftp to manually perform this update and immediately encountered a number of error messages. I sorted them out in short order and had most everything humming again within a couple of hours.

The only remaining big mess was the admin panel which wasn’t seeing its intended CSS and image files.

A colleague recommended reinstallation of the wp-admin files. This cleaned up the admin panel, but the visual editor was still inoperable. A reinstall of the wp-includes files seems to have been the answer. After trying for a number of hours to find the right fix, I’m lucky that these two simple tasks solved my issues. In looking for solutions, I found scads of good folks recommending things to try, with just as many people still looking at error codes after trying numerous fixes.

Over the next month other newts and toads will surely appear and I will wave my magic WordPress wand and say a few incantations, banishing all new forms of evil. Remember, 2.8 was just released, so those of us who jump in this soon are taking some risks.

This is a good learning opportunity for me when I’m working with my own site. But what if you are a web developer offering WP installs and customization for clients? Can one disclaim future issues, or must he or she assume responsibility for repairing any subsequent hacks or tricky updates?

There are far too many variables to make this a predictable and easy process: just check the various forums and other blogs where users document their experiences.

We all use different themes and plugins, which many of us customize endlessly, and our files surely contain some deprecated coding.

I remain a stalwart fan of WordPress but struggle to explain the nature of this beast when speaking with clients.

What do YOU do?

Then there’s lure of social media. Spending a little (ok, or a LOT) more time over there, a little (same deal, a LOT) less around here and next thing you know, your SERPS are taking a falling star’s trajectory.

Let’s say not only has your site traffic ebbed, but your revenues are on that same downward dive. And who isn’t facing that reality?

So, it’s summer and you can make lemonade. These new realities are also fodder for some good blog posts:

1. Testing new marketing strategies
2. Rearranging your work day to include more actual living since you have less work.
3. Reallocating your funds so that your budget better fits these times.
4. Setting up your new home office after having shuttered your brick-and-mortar location.
5. Defining a new client niche if your old base has eroded.
6. Redefining your business entirely, and the subsequent branding makeover.

In the knitting groups I frequent, one or another of us will often launch a “knit-along,” wherein a pattern is identified, a schedule established, and then we all work together to help keep up the pace until every one has finished and shared their object.

What about a “blog-along,” in which we all explore the same topic for a couple of weeks an then move onto another?

Tackling #1 from the list above, let’s spend the next week (June 16 – June 23) discussing our experiments with new marketing strategies for these times.

Blog your post on this topic, or create a link-y post pointing to other posts that are already all over this topic. Then, comment to lead readers to your post, or tweet it, or announce it however you prefer.

The first place to look for help after a crash is the WordPress forum: http://wordpress.org/support/. Using the forum may solve your problem right away as long as your search is precisely worded.

If fixes suggested in the forum don’t work, or your issue isn’t described there, try shouting “HELP!” to your friends and colleagues who are WordPress users. Don’t forget to ask if anyone has experience with your specific issue on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, being sure to identify the version you are running.

Chances are good that you’ll solve your problem at the forum or after Googling it. If you’re like me, you’ll discover that most problems are temporary, easily rectified, and were caused by something you did.

If the cause of your crash is more elusive, contact your host next, in case there is an underlying server issue that only they will be able to discern.

Now, that’s the overview of where to begin, but sometimes even that sequence will turn up nothing. Here’s the anatomy of the crash Loosely Speaking recently experienced. I’ll let my correspondence tell the story.

Symptom 1: “Cannot Connect to Server Database Error”

In early December 2008, I updated this blog to v.2.7. For two months everything worked perfectly. Then, one recent morning, I logged onto my blog to check a predated post that was due to appear on that morning. I was distressed to find this message: “Cannot Connect to Server Database Error.”

Following my own advice, I went to the forums and found references to the “Cannot Connect” problem:

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/146613
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/160033

None of these fixes worked to solve the problem.

Next move, start contacting friends and host.

—-

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:30 a.m.
support@myhost.com

Just tried to logon to my blog and am receiving this loading error: “Cannot Connect to Server: Database Error” can you advise?

—-

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:31:56
To: Jodi (my friend Jodi Diehl who owns Sun Frog Services and who is always there for me)
Subject: wonder if you can help me out

Hi Jodi,
Leaving town in 30 minutes for a week and naturally when I went to login to my blog this morning I got a “Database Error” message. I have contacted my host, but don’t have any resolution yet.

Meanwhile found this suggestion :

SET PASSWORD FOR some_user@some_host = OLD_PASSWORD(‘your_old password_here’);

at this site: http://www.railshostinginfo.com/blog/2007/03/19/wordpress-installation-error-establishing-a-database-connection/,

which was referenced here:

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/160033

Trouble is, I don’t know how to do this. What do you suggest?

—-

Symptom #2: Blog Redirecting to install.php

—-

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:32:56

Tried again to login and now getting this: http://blog.looseends.net/wp-admin/install.php  ???!?

Went back into the forums (as my husband is loading the car for our trip) and found lots of references to this error, but they either didn’t work for me, or involved issues on the host’s end:

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/204527

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/168510?replies=1

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/233328

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/196937?replies=1

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/190805

____

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 8:31:56
To: Jodi
Subject: Re:wonder if you can help me out
Just tried again to login and when I go here: http://blog.looseends.net
I get this: http://blog.looseends.net/wp-admin/install.php
Can’t understand why I would be getting that???
Katie

____

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 8:40
Ewwww – that’s no good!
Are you opposed to upgrading to the latest version of WP?  If you’re ok with that, I can drop in the newest version and see if that overcomes the
problem.
Regards,
Jodi

—-

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 8:42
Dear Jodi,
I already did upgrade to 2.7. Should I try 2.7.1, even though it’s broken or?
Katie

____

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 8:45
If you’ll shoot me that, I can get this fixed for you.  Normally this problem occurs when some of the code is removed from one of the core .php pages. Deleting then re-uploading the wp-admin and wp-includes folders, along with the theme folder usually does the trick.
Do you have a backup of the theme folder by chance prior to this problem
starting?
Regards,
Jodi

—-

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 9:00 a.m. Left for our trip and continued to correspond over next 12 hrs. via Blackberry.

—-

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:20 a.m.
From host tech support
We have rebooted the database server. Please try again now. Regards, Host Support

____

While on the road, I let host know site still wasn’t back up. Also let Jodi know I would try a reinstall the next day on my own.

—-

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:40 a.m.
Hello,
We are currently looking into this issue and will reply to your ticket once our findings are completed
Regards,
Host Technical Support

—-

Fri, 20 Feb 2009
It appears that you have attempted to upgrade your WP install to v2.7 which has failed. If you can tell us when the upgrade attempt was made we may be able to roll back to a previous backup, otherwise this may require reinstallation.
Regards,
Host Support

—-

My reply: yes, I did upgrade two months ago and have been problem free since that date two months ago.

_____

Fri, 20 Feb 2009

If you can tell us when the last time you blog was working, and the precise version of WP installed at that time we may be able to restore the blog from a backup. However, if the blog has been offline for more than 7 days we will not have a backup on file.

Regards,
Host Support

—-

Sat, 21 Feb 2009

Per Jodi’s suggestion, tried reinstallation of 2.7. No change. Regardless of all this crazy blog stuff,  got to visit newborn granddaughter Layla Gray at the hospital and hold her for the first time. Wow. That puts priorities back in order….

____

Sun, 22 Feb 2009
Heard from my friend Lorelle Van Fossen after leaving a HELP! comment on her blog here:
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/?page_id=3/

Katie,

The first step is the WordPress Support Forum. Did you try there? There are also lists where you can hire someone to help you with WordPress. Automattic WordPress Consultants List, WordPress Jobs, and the WP-Pro mailing list are at the top of my list.

Turn off all your Plugins and see if that helps (rename the Plugin directory via FTP). If you can’t get access via FTP, then you must contact your host.

All the support files you should need are on the web. Consider doing a full clean reinstall of WordPress (delete all the WordPress and upload them again – something might have glitched in the original upload). Run upgrade afterwards.

I know this is tough, but those are my best answers. Your web host may have an issue and this shouldn’t be a WordPress issue unless it is Plugin related. Good luck, and trust me, as someone who live on the road, I’ve done this from the road many times and it always sucks. It also sucks at home.

—-

So, good to know I was looking in all the right places…. meanwhile, no change. And, since I can’t access the admin area, I have all kinds of misgivings about hacks and hijackings, and hideous spam.

The good news: my new granddaughter Layla came home from the hospital!

—-

Mon, 23 Feb 2009

I had restored a copy of the database from the backup run the morning of the 18th but the problem has persisted. The only viable solution was to remove all data from the database and let WordPress install a fresh version. I then manually restored your uesrs, pages, posts, comments, terms, and taxonomy. However during the restoration I have found that you have installed one or more WordPress plugins and/or extensions that have modified the core database structure of WordPress. It is likely that these are the culprit in the corruption of your original WordPress installation, and I have not restored the data or database structure associated with these extensions. If you require assitance with these 3rd party extensions I recommend that you contact the vendor or developer from which you purchased or downloaded them from.

Regards,
Host Support

____

And the blog was back up! But, with categories, links and tags missing. Also internal links broken since I need to reinstate my permalinks structure, but do I do that before categories are reinstated or not?? I let “my pal” know I was back online but with a few remaining glitches to sort out.

—-

Tues, 24 Feb 2009
That’s pretty much the suggestion I gave in my email yesterday morning.
Start with fresh install and manually add the data base in (thru DB import).
Glad it’s kinda sorta up for you.  Happy to help continue repairs, but don’t
want to step on tech guy’s toes from your hosting company.  So, shout if you
want/need me to get my hands in there.

Jodi

—-

Symptom #3: Categories, Links, and Tags Missing Following Version Update

Tues, 24 Feb 2009

So, begins the process of trying to get my categories back. One friend told me only I would miss them, but, really my blog isn’t searchable without them. So here are the resources I found for THIS:

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/197548

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/204134

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/195557

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/191189

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/163333

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/167543

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/191795

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/196033

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/204955

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/204306

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/218200

http://blog.cumps.be/wordpress-26-upgrade-fix-missing-categories/

After reading through ALL of those, David Cumps’ made the most sense and had the clearest instruction. So, on to phpMyadmin to modify the tables in my database. I was certain this was the answer, but…. no, still no categories.

Meanwhile, I kept reading and and tearing hair out. Finally asked host if this could have been a hack?

—-

Tues, 24 Feb 2009
We cannot rule out the possibility of a hack, but I did not see any evidence in the core WP tables as I was restoring the data. I have uploaded a copy of the SQL dump that was usde for the restoration to the root of your blog and set the permissions so that it is only accessible via ftp. Any evidence of a hack should be contained in this file.
Host Support

—-

A few days after her initial response, Lorelle checked in again to ask how I was faring. (bless her!)

Wed, 25 Feb 2009
Some Plugins lay “dormant” until they are initiated, like comment forms. If you don’t use them, how would you know there was a problem until they are used. So the issue could be Plugin related if this is the case.
Turn them on one by one and test each one. That will help you track down that issue, if it is one.
Let me know what you figure out.

Lorelle

_____

And then, finally, eleven days after the crash first happened, I woke up to this:

Mon, 2 March 2009
After beating my head against the wall of PHP/mySQL/WP I believe I have narrowed down the issue to a mismatch of database coallations that was preventing WordPress from properly executing the required queries to get your blog’s categories built. I have matched everything to the proper character sets and coallations and your categories and blogroll appear to be working normally now.

Regards,
Host Support

—-

What? What does this even mean? Is it like a miracle? I asked if I dare reupgrade to 2.7, and my host responded:

____

Mon, 2 March 2009
I’ve taken a backup of your site files as they are now, in case something should go wrong with the upgrade, and I already have a current backup of your database from earlier today before I started tinkering. Upgrading to 2.7 is usually quick and painless, the only two things to be aware of would be deactivating all plugins before proceeding with the upgrade, and your themes, plugins, or other modifications are not guaranteed to work with the new version.

WordPress’ extended upgrade instructions are best to follow as the cover pretty much everything:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended

Regards,
Host Support

____

Tues, 3 March 2009
Hi Katie,

Very glad to hear your blog is back online.  I’ve been watching your Twitter
and FB updates to see how things were going.  I’ve been thinking about you

even though I haven’t had time to check in as of late. I’ll be back Sunday and will be back in full force Monday morning bright and early.  We can set a date for whatever works for you anytime after that.

Regards,
Jodi

—-

Symptom #4: Character Encoding Problems Following Update

The only remaining problem is a bunch of odd characters (like what you see when you paste in content direct from Word) that are now appearing in many older posts. Looking now for a fix that eliminates the need to go back through all those posts to correct manually.

Sure enough, there are some recommended fixes for that here:

Upgrade Problems: Character Encoding and Transformation

Strange Characters in blog posts after upgrade

Ultimate Solution to weird UTF character encoding problem

Phew. Game over.

Speaking of this, here are some related posts elsewhere in Loosely Speaking:

Updating to WordPress 2.7

Busted by Google: Recovering from Hacks

There are a lot more of us out there on our own these days, and it’s hard to do it all in a solopreneur office.

Especially for entrepreneurs and Do-It-Yourself types, “Unraveling Web Development” may be the kick in the pants you need to either get on with it, or finally make the decision to outsource your project.

Whichever camp you’re in, you can be implementing the tips in this guide in no time: just go to the simplified PayPal order form here.

Just fill in the form like this:

Item: Unraveling Web Development
Amount: $15.00

Or, if you have questions or would like to see a sample page, just contact me here: ktcosmos-at-LooseEnds-dot-net.

I don’t have a handle on it yet, but, as you can see, I am back online. Phew.

Categories have vanished and linking is apparently broken, so my blogroll is gone and many of the links here on the front page don’t go where they should.

When I get back to my office in March I’ll work on sorting it all out and will also acknowledge everyone (Let me just say their first names for now: Jodi, Lorelle, Fran, Scott and Wade: they know who they are!) who helped me sort through this hiccough while I was out of town and more focused on burping my new granddaughter Layla than on solving the mysteries of a WordPress installation apparently gone rogue.

Thanks for sticking with me!

ktcosmos

3/4/09 Update:

As promised, shining the spotlight on the kind folks who helped me:

Jodi Diehl, owner of Sun Frog Services, is who I call whenever I have a php, Mysql, or WordPress matter I can’t figure out on my own. She is always willing to help me out, no matter where she happens to be when she gets my plea for help.

Lorelle, publisher of Lorelle on WordPress, loves to camp in her C-class mobile but is happy to be living in a real house in a real house at long last (even though she’s never there). She’s at the top of the heap of the WordPress world, which makes her easy to find. What’s really special is that, even though she is so busy, she still responded to my squawks for help with her usual sound advice and specific recommendations. Wow.

Fran, also known as Blue Gal, runs several blogs (Blue Gal and Blue Gal’s Knits among them)  and is kind of new in my life. She’s a liberal intellectual mom who knits and knows how to shoot off tender support and pats on the back through the Internet. Really. Who does that??

Scott, owner of esembe is a new acquintance, also, and even though we have only talked a couple of times be email, he offered immediately to see if he could help. His company offers computer support (hardware and software issues) and can assist you with connectivity, web design, corporate identity and other business and personal computing matters.

Wade is in tech support at Alentus. I likely will never meet him since he’s in Canada and I am not, but he spent hours and hours trying to sort out the origin of my crash and it was he who finally solved it. So, he’s worth his weight in gold and I would make him a batch of cookies if I knew what kind he wanted.

Thanks to you all for going out of your way to help me and hold my hand through this mess. Let me know if I can ever return the favor!

During my recent sojourn in Chicago, I got a glimpse of the Chicago blogging scene with Mr_Electrico, aka Driftglass (warning: Driftglass’ blog is R-rated and politically progressive, so don’t go there if that’s not your cup of tea).

The topic of the blogger meetup we attended was SEO, so of course there was a lot of talk about social networking’s role in generating blog traffic.

Afterward, Mr. Electrico reflected,

“I went to a blogger meetup in my city but outside my comfort zone and, lo and behold, had quite a fine time. I blog in the progressive/political sphere, occasionally spilling over into literature, history, policy, current events and media, but since I’m pretty diligent about maintaining my anonymity, finding a support network has always been borderline impossible.

At the event I picked up some very practical advise and some fine contacts, but mostly it was just so energizing to be in the company of so many writers who blogged across a whole spectrum of interests (minor league hockey to sassy travel to low carbon living) but shared a real DIY passion for their causes and craft.”

The usual etiquette of not blogging or Tweeting while in meetings didn’t apply during the meetup; interestingly, many were online and were actively sending links to one another as we talked, or blogging about what was said, or just Tweeting the meeting’s details. It made sense to use our connectivity productively during that kind of gathering.

Two Lightbulbs Are Better Than One

This got me wondering: most of us Tweet or blog in isolation. What if we intentionally partnered up to explore the the various social networks we inhabit? Mr. Electrico and I sat down together later, and tried that with LinkedIn and Twitter.

As we chatted, we discussed the process we each use to find information, and we suggested topics and potential places to look for new contacts and follows. I found this tandem networking opened my mind to paths I hadn’t considered AND it also resulted in a sizable increase in followers in just a matter of hours.

Newsweek’s article (February 16, 2009) “Will the BlackBerry Sink The Presidency?” explores the conditions of information overload and continuous partial attention and the detrimental effects these can have on our brains. One example is an inability to quickly and fully re-engage in important work and decision-making following interruptions by one’s device alerts.

The notion that being always connected may cause cognitive damage is enough to make me shut it all down periodically.

However, it felt like Mr. Electrico and I were using our partial attention to great advantage during our Tandem Social Networking experiment. I think I’d like to try it again!

Try Limeshot. Emma Hoffman’s designs are fresh and different from what you find among Twitter’s badge offerings.

After an experimental period with tweets appearing in the sidebar, I decided to eliminate that in favor of a simple badge. You’ll see my simple choice (at right), but Emma offers a wide variety of backgrounds from peacocks to tartan plaids.

Fun and simple to embed.

Limeshot also offers Twitter Backgrounds for those who don’t know how to make their own.