Technical Difficulties
Hi everyone.
Just wanted to give you all the scoop on what the heck is happening to my website. My host server decided to do some maintenance this morning and my site went down. No big deal, it happens. But my site stayed down for a good six hours. I contacted them on my lunch break and got the runaround. I got home from work and the site was still down. I contacted them again, again, and again. Finally, the best they could do was to give me this lousy, default version of WordPress. No ComicPress (which is the theme I use to post comics) and no apologies.
They broke my site and refused to fix it.
So now I’m back to square one. I’ll figure it out. But let this be a lesson to all you webcartoonists out there – BACK UP YOUR WEBSITE! Do NOT for a second think that your host can do it for you.
I’ll be spending the weekend repairing the damage they’ve done, but the site should be up by Monday. Thank you very much for your patience.
Best of luck with the fixing. Your work is that of pure brilliance, we’ll wait : )
Out of curiosity, who’s your webhost (so I know who to avoid in the future)? If you’re looking for a change in host, I’d recommend the MediaTemple gridservice. It’s been pretty stable for me, and their customer support is excellent.
Here’s hoping you get everything sorted out soon.
According to twitter, Dreamhost.
I left MediaTemple because it was getting horribly overloaded. I would recommend avoiding even if it was just growing pains (for a year).
I’ve never had a problem with MediaTemple. I’ve been with them for nearly four years now, and I’ve had an absolutely smooth ride the whole way.
Holy crap, I’ve had web hosts screw me over, but this is ridiculous.
If you’re thinking of getting a new host, I suggest BlueHost.com, they’re one of the best cheap web hosts I’ve used. Bullcrap maintenance is kept to a minimum, and they’ve got that anytime money back guarantee (a deciding factor for me after getting burned by my last two hosts).
As for backing up your site, you could get an Amazon S3 account. It’s awesome, and incredibly cheap; I’ve got 20GB worth of backups of my site and several of my client sites, and they so far haven’t even charged me $5 a month (you pay based on usage). I’ve also written a script that archives a desired folder (such as the entire public folder where the real website is) along with any desired databases, and uploads it to your S3 server. All you have to do is type in som credentials to the settings file and set it up in cpanel (or plesk if that’s what you have) and set it to run, say, every sunday night). I’d be happy to help you set that stuff up if you like, no charge or anything; I love your comics and would love the opportunity to pay you back for all the laughs.
You can email me at doug@wollison.net if you’re interested.
I will also heartily recommend BlueHost. I’ve had multiple sites with them for several years, and they’ve been very reliable. They also have an affiliate program for users to recruit others, which I’m hoping to use soon as I’m trying to recruit people away from GoDaddy.
@Doug, thanks for mentioning S3. I’ve been thinking about something like that to copy off my photos and such to as multi-TB’s of pix and such isn’t as easy to keep properly backed up as I might hope. My problem is that at home, we get 1.4 mbps down, 0.72 up, so it’s going to take a while.
Backups are like voting in Chicago: back up early and often. I’ve been fortunate in that I haven’t lost anything major because I maintain multiple generations of backups. It takes a lot of work, but you only need one near-disaster to appreciate what good backups can do for you.
I can sympathize. My current web host has been having major problems. Sites slowing down or going down for no apparent reason. All they could tell me was that there was an “abusive user” on the system, but they couldn’t identify him or do anything about it. They even refused to move me to a different server. Yesterday, my site went down for an hour and that was the final straw. I’m moving to a different host.
BTW, you can get a WordPress plugin called WP-DB-Backup to automatically back up your database and e-mail you the backup. This way, if your host goes completely dead, you can move the database easily to a new host. (Doesn’t help you now, I know, but handy for the future.)
Thanks for the tip on WP-DB-Backup, got it up on my comic site and it’s really easy and convenient!
You are worth the wait.
Thank you for the little slices of joy you post.
Major bummer! I was going to post a link to your amazing art in a heated debate on “What is “female” humor and what is “male” humor?” as a brilliant example on how to reach ANYBODY with a sense of humor… ;0) Hope this turns out well, have a good weekend and keep up the excellent work!
Best Regards,
Norwegian Fan Kathrine
How about posting the contact info for your host so some of us with lots of free time can make them miserable till they fix it for you?
I second that. I’ve got nothing but time…
It’s the website files that went kerblooey; seems like the DB is the ONLY thing the host had backed up, as we can see from the voluminous archives and their intact comments. My guess is that their “maintenance” ended up wiping the files on the webserver side of things while the backend DB servers weren’t touched.
Up to this point I’ve been running a dedicated physical server, and this month I’m migrating to a (cheaper, yet more powerful) virtual private server at Linode. They offer a backup scheme for a fee, and I’m considering using that instead of cobbling together scripts-and-things like I utilize now. We’ll see.
ah dreamhost, why am I not surprised? I’m not even sure what is appropriate to say in this situation.. I guess it’s a “sorry for your loss?” or perhaps a “my condolences”.
As GreyDuck pointed out though, it looks like all posts/comments are intact, just not any files you were storing.
Wow, that’s pretty unpleasant. I’m using Blogger for Tree Lobsters, with a custom template I hacked together from bits and pieces of stock ones. It’s a bit wonky but if it breaks at least I know it’s my fault. š
If it makes you feel any better, I am so addicted to Bug that I checked to see if you were back up, like, six times yesterday. So, no worries, I’ll be patient – your audience isn’t going to abandon you over a lil’ old glitch. We NEED our daily dose of Bug too much!
As I’m a reader and not a publisher, I can’t offer any helpful bit of info. Just incredibly sad that my morning routine (which includes a daily chuckle, laugh, and occasional snort with Bug) is going to be off till Monday. But you’ve got a loyal following, and we’ll all wait it out.
Yeah, the site wouldn’t load yesterday. Sorry.
good luck fixing it! I really enjoy reading your comics and I’m so glad that I found your work! You have a very witty sense of humor.
I was wondering what happened to the site… THAT SUCKS… Good luck with the fix!
You could take a year (god forbid) of being offline and I would check back every day. I love Bug! Absolute support.
Funny how times of hardship lead to saying things like “My boyfriend and I love your comics and read them daily, and reference them in conversation frequently. Keep up the awesome work!” when those things would be totally appropriate to say at any time. Can’t wait until you’re back up and running!
It appears that bugcomic.com is hosted on Dreamhost, since the IP resolves to ps24929.dreamhost.com
Sorry to hear that. š Hope everything goes well and you don’t have to tear any hair out over it! š
Mal muy mal lo que ha ocurrido con tu direccion, en verdad que se han comportado muy poco profesionales al no querer asumir la responsabilidad por el daƱo que le causaron a tu sitio.
Oh, bueno, es una experiencia de aprendizaje.
Bicho bilingĆ¼e! Buena suerte arreglando lo de tu sitio… OjalĆ” el lunes todo haya vuelto a la normalidad.
Sorry to hear that Adam. I’m a big fan and will gladly wait. Also you’re experience has prompted me to backup my site so hey, some good came out of this!
Also if you don’t mind me asking who is your host?
Good ol’ capitalism. Caveat emptor!
More like really bad customer service. As in, none at all.
So what’s your twitter? I hear there’s a comic update on there? x
@bugcomic
Oh, that’s what’s going on. I thought you had quit or worse… died. I haven’t known about you for long, month or two. I did read all of your comics over about two days though. My favourite is the one with the doctor and amnesia.
First I’d like to say thank goddess it’s not my computer (like I’ve been thinking) and second I’m a very loyal fan and will wait on pins and needles for this to be fix! You do great work and make many people laugh. Blessed Be Adam!
I’ve enjoyed your comic for a while now. So, you can back up your content to my own home server. You probably have other things set up, but the offer’s out there. My email is in this reply, so you can contact me if you’d like.
-Mat
Bad luck Adam, I check this website every weekday so I was uber disappointed when this happened. I go on holiday on sunday aswell, so no comics for a couple of weeks!!
OH NO THEY DI’IN’T.
I opened the Bug site today and was rather surprised to see this. Then I read the post and found out what had happened. Hopefully, for your sanity and all Bug fans’, the site will be fixed soon. I’ll definitely be checking back every day to see how the situation is changing.
Good luck in your fixing!
That’s too bad. I didn’t have internet for a few days and now I can’t see the last 3 strips. First Max Overacts had to change hosts, now this? *sigh*
I have a feeling that Adamās web host is a mobster. Or a creeper.
āThis is a nicssssse website youāve got hereā¦ itād be a sssshame if something were to happen to it.ā
Bummer. Best of luck finding a solution.
Sadly, missing Bug the last couple days! Hoping to see his beautiful antenne Monday morning! Thanks for all the Laughs! I just can’t start my day without it! (Bug IS my coffee) <3
I say we smash into their offices and make’em regret messin with our bug comics! The scurvy dogs! Arrrr!
I concur.
Jeez, what a mess! Here’s hoping the new site is a bazillion times better, and thanks for explaining. I almost had a panic attack yesterday (“What do you mean, no Bug? AUGH!”).
Wow, my condolences man. Problem is, the cheaper the site is, the less reason they have to go the extra mile for you. I pay about twice what Dreamhost asks for, but at the same time when there was a problem (hacked site- one of a great number of them) my host busted a gut and had me back up totally restored in 2 days, including straightening out a stolen domain name. The only worry I have will be the great quake, because of where my host is located. So think about what you are willing to spend on the host. More may be better (although all high cost hosts are not necessarily good).
When I can to the site I was really confused to see WordPress, and checked the URL bar to make sure I had typed it right š I am sorry to see the site down, and hope to see it back up soon!
I WANT MY BUG BACK! (Sob, sniffle…)
I hope you have good luck fixing all of these Bugs in your website. Hopefully they don’t Bug you too much…
Oh that’s good. I thought you were down forever and that made me sad. No more Bug would be a terrible thing.
sue them !!
Guess I shouldn’t mention http://www.bugcomic.com/comics/website-woes/ then?
having the website up and running again approaches the term “beautiful”. although, i haven’t had breakfast yet, so i’m unsure of my judgements.
I do hope you make a comic about this..