We experienced a massive site failure yesterday evening, with the database corrupted. Those of you familiar with the intricate workings of WordPress will know that the database holds everything -- all the content, all the comments, all the configuration data. When the database goes, the site goes. Fortunately, the database is backed up on a regular basis.
However, it appears some of the site files were also corrupted, and the backups refuse to restore correctly (why is still a mystery to me). The fastest way to get the site back up and running was to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress, which cleared out the corrupted files and some other database issue. However, the site theme (look and feel) and some of the custom plugins need to be reworked a bit to work under the new version of WordPress.
So, as of now, the content is online, which is the most important thing, but you’ll notice that the site looks funny, and certain things are broken, like the threaded comments. If you find anything else that looks broken, please report it below and I’ll have a look at it.
Over the next couple of days I’ll be working on getting everything back up to speed again. There may be other periods of downtime during this transition. My apologies for the previous and upcoming downtime- I know a lot of you use this site for personal, educational, and professional development, and I do endeavor to keep it running as much as possible.
Thanks, as always, for visiting.
Alex
