Distaster Averted

Almost a disaster last week with my blog. I was sweating for a few days. It started when I noticed that loading my blog had slowed down. When you typed the address in it took ages to load and sometimes timed out. As I pay good money to host it I got onto my hosting company and asked them what the problem was. They apologized and were very nice about it. They explained that the database I was using was overloaded and the remedy was simply to move to another database.

Ok, no problem I thought. Simple matter. I went into my PHPAdmin section and backed up my database. I had to do this because before I could create another database I had to delete the existing one. With almost a year’s work gone into my blog losing it would be a disaster from which psychological recovery would be slim. So I made sure I had everything backed up. I even did it twice to be doubly sure. I think this is just a sign of middle-aged uncertainty. You know what it’s like when you reach a certain age all the things you believed in start to crumble and you begin to question everything, even if you really did just back up a database ten minutes ago.

Anyway, once I was satisfied that I had backed everything up I then took the next step of deleting my existing database. The database that contains all the settings and posts of my blog. I admit, I was nervous. I felt a bit like a sniper taking his first shot, my finger hesitated over the mouse, taking the pressure slowly then releasing it as a little voice yelled “NO!” in my head. Sweat trickled down my temples. I let go of the mouse. Went to the folder that contained my backup file and checked it was still there and hadn’t escaped through the back of my computer.

Satisfied, I fortified myself put my hand on the mouse and clicked “delete” The computer then questioned the wisdom of my decision by asking me if I was really sure I wanted to do this. Before this question sent me into a whirlwind of uncertainty and more philosophical questioning like how many angels can dance on a destroyed blog, I clicked yes.

And it went.  Gone to the great computer file heaven in the sky, or wherever deleted files go. No problem, it was now a simple matter of going back into PHPAdmin and importing my saved database. Before I did this I checked my blog domain and saw a white page with nothing there except an error message. So it was done. A year’s work had disappeared.

I wasn’t worried it was a simple enough job to restore it. I went through the restore process. Found the saved database on my computer and clicked “restore”. All that should happen now is that the database would be restored on a new server and I am ready to go. Only it didn’t. It came up with an error message telling me the database already existed. The database didn’t exist though because I’d deleted it.

My blog had gone and I couldn’t restore my backup. Ho shit! Now I’m a great believer that life is meant to be hard and we are supposed to get hit with things every day. Our job is to stay calm and logically fight our way through these slings and arrows.  So I put into process of logical damage limitation and phoned the help line.

I got through to a woman who was very nice but I had some difficulty understanding her and she me. Which resulted in me spelling everything I said out. Once she was satisfied she knew what my problem was she told me she’d pass it to their technical team and contact me later. Now I thought she was the technical team. When I asked how long before I heard anything, she was vague.

This is a long story and I’m not going to bore you with the rest of it. It was resolved by my son. I’d invested money sending him to computer college a few years ago and he had a working knowledge of SQL. I called him into my room and he sprawled all over my desk and took control of my computer, with a “what’ve you done now” When I explained he said; “You shouldn’t have done that” I said; “I know” he said “You should have asked me to do it” I said “I know”

Anyway I’m glad to say he rescued me, after a few hours of flicking through his SQL book. So I’m back. IIt’s a nice sunny Saturday afternoon and I’m about to go swimming with my granddaughter before going for a few pints.

Have a nice weekend