I’m not having a laugh at all. I’m serious. Get iPage and kick them until they listen, because no one but them are screwing with you.
If the databse you’re using is down, WordPress, which relies on that database is also down. That’s how it works.
HENCE THE SHOUTING! which i will do if i naffing well want to considering 4 years of blogging could have been lost because of a stupid mistake.
And you will find yourself flagged as a spammer if you cannot be polite and reasonable.
1) Your blog posts live on the database. If the DB goes away and you install a new one, well, your posts are still lost, but that wasn’t affected by a new-install.
2) No one but you, who has access to both the DB server and the ID/passwords to that server, has access to install. Seriously, it’s secure.
3) Your problem isn’t that WordPress doesn’t fail elegantly, your problem is your host sucks. If they can’t keep your site up, you need to take your posts and your money and walk. Cause that’s not acceptable to me. You’re paying them for uptime, they’re not providing.
It’s not a bug, my post was actually useful. You need to shout at the people who can fix this, not the nice volunteer.
ETA – As someone reminded me, if the DB goes away, WordPress SHOULD just say ‘Halp! Cannot connect!’ If you’re getting the install screen, then your wp-config.php may also be nuked, which REALLY is the server being hosed and not WordPress, which can’t delete that file anyway.
