Climate Conversation Group

UPDATE 3: Tue 12 Jan 2010 4:15 pm

It’s been four days without the blog

On Friday afternoon I asked for technical help from my web hosting provider. Something went wrong when they moved the site to a new server. While I was waiting for them to fix it, I formed a desire to install a second copy of WordPress as a test bed. I thought: what could possibly go wrong?

The minute I created the second database, the first one stopped working, meaning nobody, myself included, could access the Climate Conversation Group blog.

However, it turned out that there was no connection between the two events; they just coincided.

It’s very frustrating not having the blog available. The traffic logs show that a lot of people visit here every day, so I’m sorry about the lack of service.

Feel free to leave any comments, questions or complaints below.

UPDATE 2: Fri 8 Jan 2010 1:30 pm

Well, the upgrade still hasn’t happened, but the whole site is now on a server with the latest software that WordPress requires, hurrah! My thanks to the technical support staff at The Kiwi Web Hosting Company in Wellington for their help.

After the nameservers have replicated the new details I’ll do the WordPress upgrade. Boring, really, isn’t it? Computers have nothing to do with the subject, yet without them we’d wait weeks to hear each others’ messages, so it’s sensible to take care of them.

UPDATE 1: Thu 7 Jan 2010 10:28 am

I’ve just regained access to the administration functions, which were locked out when the WordPress upgrade to 2.9 failed. We’re back at 2.8.6 and I’ll now migrate the site to a newer server running later versions of MySQL and PHP so I can complete the upgrade. A few spam posts came through while the plugins were turned off but I’ve deleted those now. Sorry for any inconvenience.

BEWARE: If you’re upgrading your WordPress blog to 2.9, please note that it needs MySQL version 4.1.2 or higher! However, it won’t tell you this until right at the end, when it’s too late to go back.

I had taken a backup, but I needed WordPress version 2.8.6, which I didn’t have because it was an automatic upgrade, meaning I didn’t get the download file to keep.

Normal service will be resumed shortly, I hope. There could be a few hours of interrupted service later today or tomorrow when the nameservers get updated with the new address. I’m not sure when that will occur, because I’m having to migrate the WordShine site as well, of course. I’ve not done it before so I don’t know what to expect.

Again, my apologies, and thanks for your patience.

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Original post (Thu 6 Jan 1:40 pm)

I’m starting an upgrade to the latest WordPress (v 2.9.1) which I hope will be done within 30 minutes.

Sorry

My apologies for any inconvenience!

Richard Treadgold.