I thought we were in for it. I thought that this website had been ran through with a mean virus. Luckily, I thought wrong. On New Year’s Day I did a virus scan of my Wordpress theme template files. A few things came up. Some of them looked to be viruses. Though they had not [...]
I thought we were in for it. I thought that this website had been ran through with a mean virus. Luckily, I thought wrong.
On New Year’s Day I did a virus scan of my WordPress theme template files. A few things came up. Some of them looked to be viruses. Though they had not shown any evident impacts, I still wanted them slayed and buried, or for them to justify their presence.
I began researching how to get rid of them. I updated my WordPress Installation to 2.9. The administrative area of my site then flipped and flopped and stabbed itself in the gut.
I broke it.
I was then in New Jersey, 10 minutes before boarding a bus to New York City. I had no time to deal with deep site issues. I boarded the bus and went to the city.
For the entire weekend I could not bear to open up the computer, for I knew well what laid inside: an entire day of banging my head up against a wall trying to fix something.
I hung out with friends instead. Though I must admit that I secretly worried about the site.
What if I could not fix it? What if my tenure of publishing on the internet was doomed to meet its end?
I told my wife Chaya that I was worried — I had put all of my eggs into this website monster. She told me to drink another beer and go smash bottles on the roof of our friend’s apartment. I listened.
Monday morning arrived and I found myself back at my paternal home in Western, New York. I found myself with no place else to look but into the bugs under the covers of this travelogue.
Thinking that my problems were caused by a virus, I dug into re-uploading the entire blog. I was scared to do so — understandable.
For a few hours I milled about with backing and re-backing everything up. I went for an expedient solution and tried to import an xml copy of this travelogue to a dummy (tester) blog that I had made for this purpose. The file was too big.
This would mean that I would have to delete and then re-upload the entire database to a new WordPress installation. I would just delete the entire thing and then put it all back up.
I checked my provisions — I had a new backup of the database. I got ready to delete the entire blog. I got cold feet.
Then I notice that my installation on my server was not updated. It said that I was still running WordPress version 2.9 rather than the 2.9 that I had uploaded “on site” through the automatic updater.
Hmm . . . maybe?
I tried it. I clicked “upgrade” in the database menu.
It updated.
I checked the administrative panel.
It worked.
Apparently, the automatic upgrader in the WordPress Admin panel did not fully upgrade the installation.
For safe measure I deleted the theme that I was working with that had the “potential” viruses, and then reloaded it.
I did a virus scan. It checked out good.
Now it was time to re-customize the site.
It is 9 PM and I am finished.
Back in the saddle.
An explanation of the gap in this “daily” travel column.
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About the Author: VBJ
I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. VBJ has written 3723 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.
VBJ is currently in: New York City
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