My blog has died

  • mistywindow

    (@mistywindow)


    18 years, 10 months ago

    When trying to open my WordPress weblog
    http://blog.mistywindow.com/

    I get:

    Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘}’ in /home/mistywin/public_html/blog/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 97

    My knowledge of PHP is almost zero, but another blogger has used a copy of my formatting.php page on his own blog with no problems.

    Line 97 is:
    else return false; # Does not match any model

    A text file of the page can be seen here:
    http://www.mistywindow.com/test/formatting-php.txt

    but I’m 99% sure that there’s nothing wrong with it.

    Any help much appreciated.

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
  • DianeV

    (@dianev)

    18 years, 10 months ago

    So, what happened before your blog “died”? Did you change anything?

    Thread Starter mistywindow

    (@mistywindow)

    18 years, 10 months ago

    No, not that I’m aware of. I hadn’t accessed it for some weeks. Just decided to get motivated and that was the result.

    ccoupe

    (@ccoupe)

    18 years, 10 months ago

    I suspect your web host has changed something — perhaps they upgraded to a new version of php. Very mysterious, but some thing had to change and if it wasn’t you, it has to be them.

    You could try replacing the file with a copy (if you have one) although what you posted looks OK to me and matches what I have.

    Thread Starter mistywindow

    (@mistywindow)

    18 years, 10 months ago

    Tried replacing the file. Made no difference.
    Irksome, to say the least :o(

    ccoupe

    (@ccoupe)

    18 years, 10 months ago

    Might be a good time to do DB backup. It’s always a good time for that.

    It’s possible although I consider it very very remote, your server suffered a hardware disk error or an OS error which typically trashes way more than one character in one file.

    You need to talk to the tech support people at your hosting service or find your system logs to rule out hw/os problems.

    The parse error could be caused by some other damaged php file. You could try uploading all of them again since you seem to have a copy (don’t install or upgrade the DB. Something changed. It needs to be undone.

    Thread Starter mistywindow

    (@mistywindow)

    18 years, 10 months ago

    Thanks for that,
    Unfortunately, my backup is the same – I tried that.
    I’m sure you’re right, the whole thing is trashed.
    One question.
    Which php file or files would contain the text from my posts? I’d like to recover that if possible.

    Thread Starter mistywindow

    (@mistywindow)

    18 years, 10 months ago

    I suppose the text of my posts is in the MySQL database, but I don’t have a clue how to find it.

    syncbox

    (@syncbox)

    18 years, 10 months ago

    You would go into whatever control panel your host provides, locate the MySQL section, then locate the link to open phpMyAdmin (hopefully, they have that). Who is your provider?

    From there, you’d locate your database and export the tables. In most cases, this is done by clicking on the Export tab, then selecting all the database tables in the View Dump>Export column. I typically accept the default settings (except for selecting all the tables) and export using the Save as File option… I’m using version 2.9.2 of phpMyAdmin, so a newer version (or older) could vary a bit.

    Save it to your desktop.

    Then, use FTP to save all the custom files for your theme, your plugins and such. I keep a list of what files are different from the basic install as I tend to modify more than just the theme, but that’s me.

    Then, create a new installation of WordPress – I use hosts that offer Fantastico, so this is an easy thing… You can opt to delete the old one and install a new one using the same folder, etc so nothing should change. Be sure to use the same admin name and password…

    Once you’ve installed the new WP files, make sure that the site shows up (this won’t have your data in it, but make sure it works)

    Now upload the custom template files and in your admin pages, select your theme.

    Then, using phpMyAdmin again, get into that database. Select all the tables. There should be a Check All/Uncheck All link to do that. To the right of that link, there should be a menu that allows you to choose “drop”. Do it. You are only dropping empty tables, really.

    Now you are ready to bring in your own data.

    Using phpMyAdmin in your now empty database, click the Import tab. Browse out to your desktop and select the database your exported from the original WP installation. Click the Go button and keep your fingers crossed!

    HTH. If you’ve not changed the folder where you’ve installed or the domain name, etc… this is all you should need to do. Check through the site to see if that fixed things.

    The database tables contain everything about your site, from its name to url to post & page content to theme selection, etc

    Thread Starter mistywindow

    (@mistywindow)

    18 years, 10 months ago

    Much appreciated syncbox, I’d got as far as exporting the tables, now I’ll try the rest.

    Thread Starter mistywindow

    (@mistywindow)

    18 years, 10 months ago

    Thanks everybody. My database was trashed. It’s a new beginning :o)
    This time learning a bit more about backing up MySQL databases.

    DianeV

    (@dianev)

    18 years, 10 months ago

    That’s a drag. If you search for your site at Google, you may find that Google has cached your pages, and you can save those to recover your text. Here’s the Google search command:

    site:yoursite.com

    Secondly, can you find any part of your posts in your database dump?

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

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