Joy and Despair with Technology

Last night I was ready to move one of my WordPress web sites to production.  It has been completed for a while and we were using a pilot group to test.  Testing was done.  Everything was ready to go.

The old site was hosted on another hosting service. I logged onto it, unlocked the domain, got the access key and then made the request to set up for the transfer of the domain name to my host.  After a few emails and a few more mouse clicks it was done. I then set WordPress to use the new domain and …YES, the magic of the Internet worked.  I could get to the new site with the correct URL.  Joy.

I started clicking around on the site to make sure everything was working.  For the most part everything did.  There were a few links that had the test site URL hard coded that I had to update, but not many.  I always dread changing the URL because it just seems like there are so many things that can go wrong.  Then it happened…  Despair.

This site has a section that requires the user to log in to see it. I had used several plugins to make this work. It had been working.  It had been tested. Now it didn’t work. What happened?

Jumped into problem solving mode.  Gathered information about the error.  Viewed the source on the HTML page in the browser to see the full error. Reviewed the code that generated the page.  Looked at my notes about changes I had made to the plugins.  I didn’t have a clue about the problem.  Well, I knew what the problem was; I just didn’t know why it happened.  Needed more information.  Made some changes to the code to get more information.  Yes, I had the right place but not the right answers.

Sometimes the answer is right in front of you.  I read the error message. It said, “This file is not found.”  That means that the file is not there.  I had assumed the URL was the problem, but that was not it.  The file was actually not there.  I read the notes I made. When it says you did something, there must be a reason  you did it.  It said I removed the call to the file that was not there because the file was not there.  OK, I guess I am just slow.

The real problem was that I had updated the plugin and it wrote over the changes I had made a few months ago to make this all work.  My real problem was that I assumed that the change in the URL was the cause of the problem.  It was not.  I made the changes and..Joy!  It worked again.

Lessons learned:

1. Don’t update a plugin where you have changed the code (or remember to change it back).
2. Make better notes about the changes you make.
3. Believe the error messages and notes.
4. Don’t expect that moving something to live status is ever easy.
5. Especially don’t make assumptions about the cause of the problem.  Look at the information you have.

Those of us that work with technology every day get to experience joy and despair every day.  There is a lot of joy in building something and seeing it work.  There is also a lot of despair when something that was working does not work anymore.  I hope that  you have lots more joy than despair.

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3. Part 1: Using WordPress and Artisteer on a new Business website