1. Upload photo on site as it – 404 error using XP with IE8 & Chrome then Windows 7 using Firefox

2. Disable all plugins and try again – 404 error

3. Disbale all plugins and change theme to Twenty Eleven – 404 error

4. Upload photo from phone – Success

5. Edit successfully uploaded phone post with PC - 404 error

6. Edit successfully uploaded phone post with phone - success

7. Try no flash upload plugin – 404 error

8. Put site back to where it was and go out on the bike for a long ride and forget about it.

Conclusion…there’s something up with the computer. I’m going to blame flash but don’t get all ‘It’s something ‘you did you computer illiterate buffoon’ because I’ve used my mechanical engineering powers of deduction to prove its ‘not me its you’. My thanks go to my work laptop and wifes netbook (the one she nicked off me), my desktop at home and the winner for today my Desire S Android phone

The theme I use is fixed, it also has a sidebar. There are also grids and containers that are used to organise where things go on the site. Trouble is that if you alter one aspect for one page then you can mess up the whole page. Enter ‘Conditional Tags’. These are supposed to simplify things and to a large extent they do, so its easy right? not a chance.  I wanted to do a simple thing, have one width for my home page with a sidebar and a wider width for the rest of the pages without a sidebar.

First get rid of sidebar from pages template – Easy – delete <  get sidebar > Done. That left me with a white space where the sidebar used to be.

Right then I need two headers one wide one and one narrow one. Thing is you can’t have two files called header, but you can have two called header wide and header narrow.  Replace all the code in the header.php file with

<?php
if (is_home()){
  include(TEMPLATEPATH.’/header-normal.php’);
}
else {
  include(TEMPLATEPATH.’/header-wide.php’);
}
?>

But oh how many times did I have to write this without getting syntax errors. let me tell you tons. I have no php skills, no programming skills at all really but I can follow instructions, or so I thought, well I did follow them but in loads of cases they were completely wrong.  Not just in one place but all over the internet. Cut and paste to make a blog page? I think so. Loads of requests in forums for help becuase of the syntax error, yes? any of them answered? not many.

When you step into an alien world where there is a language barrier its easy to point at an orange and ask for it in a sort of grunt. Us Brits have been able to speak pretty much every language by speaking slowly and loudly in English so you can be understood. Trouble is that doesn’t work on the internet. Is this retribution for our inability to speak another language or me getting cross with computers again?

Time I took a break from all this computer jiggery pokery and concentrated on finishing off my portable cobbwebb antenna

it still astounds me how this system never seems to smoothly upgrade for me. At least this time there wasn’t anything lost on the way through.

Just in case it doesn’t work too well i’ll be leaving it on XAMPP for a few more weeks and checking the forums for the inevitable questions about what happened to this or that!

Needless to say that WordPress automatic upgrade plugin works for plugins but not for the site. I’m not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing really.

?

WordPress strikes again

Having had to reinstall the whole shooting match and losing the visual editor, ability to edit posts, delete files and folders from my host I’m getting to the point where I’ll be looking for a new CMS if I can’t get this sorted out. So in preparation I’ve install XAMPP onto a flash drive for offline work to try and replicate the faults but so far it’s just not happening.

What should be a simple thing is both frustrating and time consuming. These oh-so-simple systems tend to have hidden caveats or features that are adding to not just mine but a lot of other woes.

just for reference the symptoms were:

1. Could not upload any media

2. Could not edit or save edits to any pages, post, plugins or widgets

?

Here’s the long list of things I tried and eventually ended up doing out of desperation

• Reinstall WP2.5
• Install WP2.5.1
• Clear all caches and cookies
• Searched WP forums for possible solutions
• Wasted loads of time trying things that didn’t work
• Posted on WP forums asking for help – no-one came
• Deleted all files from my host (after backing up)
• Reinstalled WP2.3.2 and couldn’t recover database
• Upgraded using WPAU plugin to WP2.5
• Tried to recover database again
• Failed
• Tried again and again and again
• Failed again and again and again
• Considered using other CMS like drupal or joomla
• Installed XAMPP and WP2.3.2 / WP2.5 and WP2.5 on a flash drive to try and recreate problems – no success
• Redirected my whole site to old WP.com site
• Tried to relsove through WP IRC. No one about
• Decided that this was a very good way of backing up seeing as everything else went to the dogs
• Contacted my host and within 15 had the problem solved.

Can you tell that this has cheesed me off?