Storms Ahead

Storms Ahead

As teachers we sometimes forget that learning and creation is a process. Furthermore, despite the fact that we oftentimes bemoan students’ fixation on grades many educational environments cannot tolerate a lack of observable progress. Too often we forget that setbacks are inherent in any endeavour and that sometimes these setbacks cannot be anticipated or mitigated by preventative measures. Sometimes experience is our only teacher and we must learn as much as we can from the lessons it teaches lest we stumble again over the same issue.

Progress Halted

“Oh Come on!!??”

Despite my initial annoyance a 500 server error is something I have encountered before in addition to many other issues I have had to trouble-shoot over the past five years of web development. I assumed that something must be amiss with the .htaccess file or perhaps a plugin conflict was causing the trouble. Not yet overly concerned, I immediately logged into my hosting account and replaced the .htaccess file with a new one of my own design. Initially, this seemed to do the trick as I was able to access the backend of my network but upon trying to access the site I intended to work on I again got the same error message which then prevented me form experiencing the gains I thought I had just made. Somewhat more frustrated I decided to disable the plugins folder to ensure a conflict wasn’t the cause of my problem despite the fact that I hadn’t installed a new plugin in over a month. This possible solution also had no effect. I now resigned myself to loosing days of work on my site by restoring from a backup that is automatically generated by my hosting service on a weekly and monthly basis. I reasonably concluded that restoration to when I knew my site was functional should make it functional again. After about a forty minute wait I was in for another shock when the 500 error continued to be an issue after the restore. I was now growing increasingly upset.

For the past several months I have had issues with my network that I suspect were due to some change made to the server by my hosting service. On each occasion I contacted customer support via live chat (one of the only options) and would routinely get someone on the other end whom either didn’t know the first thing about wordpress or wasn’t able to follow the conversational specifics necessary to solve my issue. I am always patient with customer service representatives because I know they are there to help but when I am asked for a third time to describe the same problem in detail and offered responses that are obviously cut and pasted from some manual that has little to do with my original issue a sense of real desperation begins to set in. Fortunately, by contacting customer support I was able to gain access to my root site (front and back end) before giving up on getting further help with my issue.

After gaining access to my root site I still had no access to any of the other sites on my network. Attempting to load them resulted in the same error message I got previously. Although I had tried it before, I deactivated all the plugins for my site in a hail Mary attempt to fix things…. Touch down! Relief washed over me as I witnessed my browser load my network sites (sans plugins) for the first time in over two days. After getting the sites to load I went about the laborious process of figuring out which plugin was the issue. After some methodical troubleshooting I discovered to my surprise that Yoast SEO was the culprit. Since this is such a well respected plugin used by so many I’m forced to conclude that some type of corruption occurred with my copy. I will reinstall the plugin at a later date once I’ve completed some extra backups of my network.

Work Through It

“No worries man! It’s all good!”

I have taken away a few lessons from this week’s mishaps. First, I intend to change my hosting service. Since I started using WordPress I have been with Hostmonster but after my most recent negative experience (in addition to others) interacting with their customer service I think its time for a change.
Although I’m reluctant to migrate servers in the middle of a major project I cannot shake the feeling that I will get near the end of my work only to have Hostmonster leave me in the lurch again. I have read excellent things online about Bluehost and since their service is comparable to WordPress in many ways I think they are a good option. Especially after contacting Bluehost’s customer service with some pre-sale questions regarding migration I am particularly impressed with the service they offer. Still, I think I’m going to find out more about the migration process before attempting it.

In addition to migrating hosting services I think I also need to reconsider how much use I make of wordpress multisite installs. Multisite is an excellent option for running multiple sites off of one install which allows you a level of integration between sites and other benefits that simply can’t happen with a single site install. However, as seen with my issue, multisite installs are particularly vulnerable to errors on one site effecting the entire network. To insulate myself from this problem upon switching to Bluehost I will have several separate installs with some of them being multisite installs. On sites that do not depend on other sites to function correctly I will simply use a separate install and employ multisite installs only on sites that have dependancies.

Lastly, I think the feeling of helplessness that oftentimes occurs as a result of these types of problems is due to the fact that I am basically alone in the learning process without anyone to contact in an emergency. I am largely self taught when it comes to what I am capable of with site design and web development so I’m willing to admit that some of the issues I experience are probably self made. While it is true that my hosting service can offer some support they quite reasonably draw the line with matters they consider outside of the hosting agreement. The only support that many wordpress users can get is to put a question up on WordPress.com’s forums which is increasingly akin to being lost at sea and relying on a message in a bottle to save you. Consequently, I took some time this week to look up WordPress clubs in my area and have found one that I intend to join. They meet bimonthly to discuss issues surrounding wordpress and support each other’s development. I think if I can become a part of a small community of WordPress users the mutual support will make episodes like the one I experienced this week a much less frightening prospect.

Round Up

Two steps forward…

Although I made no tangible progress towards the implementation of my CMS this week I feel like the problem I encountered is going to put me on a footing for future prosperity. In the end if I can avoid issues like the one I experienced this week I am confident that any time I might have lost will be well worth the long term gains. Such is the nature of learning and the importance of experiencing from problems. This is something we educators should always keep in mind with ourselves and our students.