How would you feel one day if you woke up and found out that your blog had suffered from some kind of technical implosion and you were getting some mysterious error and there was no hope of recovery? How many hours of effort would you have lost in one moment? What if you ended up losing everything? Here’s my story and why you want a good WordPress Backup Plugin…
I just recently had my own wake-up call a few days ago. I had been working about 12 hours or more adding a few final touches to my first blog ever. I had been working for weeks learning how to use WordPress, watching video trainings in The Unified Tribe, and installing and tweaking plugins and widgets. And here I was. I was almost done. Just two more plugins to go.
I don’t remember what happened exactly. The details are a little hazy now. It was about midnight, and all I remember is that I only had two more plugins to install. I was going to finish installing the one I was working on, and after that install a backup plugin to protect myself in case I ever had any issues.
SOMETHING WENT TERRIBLY WRONG!!!
I was in the process of activating a plugin when my screen froze up. My browser became non-responsive and I had to use task manager to close out of it.
Then I was completely unable to log into my blog. I received a generic 500 error that offered no help or solutions. I started thinking. “Man, if I have to re-install my blog, I’m going to lose hundreds of hours of intensive effort to set all this up”.
After searching forums, blog posts, and Google to find any hope, I came up with no solutions. So there I was clicking the button to re-install WordPress. I read the message warning me that I was about to overwrite any previous work…
Well… I wouldn’t say that I chickened out, I’d rather say that I rallied my troops for another charge. So I hit cancel and gave myself one more try to find a solution.
I finally found a highly technical solution that involved logging into my hosting company, renaming my plugin folder (which basically removed all plugins from my blog). And then all of the sudden I was able to log into my blog again!
Once I was able to log in, I went back to my plugin folder and put it back the way it was. I refreshed the page in WordPress and was able to delete the crashed plugin. WHEW! A Major Disaster was narrowly averted.
HUNDREDS OF HOURS WERE SAVED!
LESSONS LEARNED
1) Install a good WordPress backup plugin BEFORE you have any issues!
There are many out there. Just go into your blog and search the ‘Add New’ Plugin section. The one I selected was configured to backup daily at the time of my choosing.
2) Network with other bloggers.
Everyone needs a place to ask questions. That’s why it’s so important to network with other experienced bloggers. My place to do that is on The Unified Tribe, which is a community of social media marketers who network together to support (and even better promote) each other. There’s a good free resource there. So if you’re a blogger and you could benefit from networking with other experienced bloggers, it’s certainly worth a look.
Was this helpful? Do you have your own story to share? Leave a comment below, and help other people by getting the word out with a ‘Tweet’ or ‘Like’.
January 27, 2011 at 7:36 am
hi joe:
Thanks for commenting on my blog post yesterday. Decided to see what your website was about! Great info in your blog – have become a follower thru networked blogs. Why not join my following on Judi B’s Health, Wellness & FitnessTips at http://judib.wordpress.com? Will definitely add on the back -up plug in. Have put too much energy into the blog – glad you liked it. Just added a link to my exercise & fitness equipment store on my blog. Check it out & would love to network with you!
January 27, 2011 at 9:14 am
Judi!
Thanks for stopping by! I was just researching a few things on line and came across your wellness blog. (Here’s a link for annyone who would like to check it out).
Thanks for connecting with me in Networked Blogs. Nice hearing from you. Will you be at Mannafest this year?
October 21, 2010 at 3:51 pm
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September 3, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Thank you so much Joe, I am so glad I read this post!! I just installed the WP Backup – I hope that’ll work as well. If anyone has experience with that one let me know.
Technology is a LOVE/HATE relationship….
Erika Olson
September 2, 2010 at 8:29 am
Bei Fen is the Backup Plugin that I use personally. For now, but as soon as this blog is a little more established, I'll change that to something more robust.
If you want to be completely safe, it's best to have "OFFSITE" backups. Most plugins store the back up in a folder on your server. But if your server crashes you could be shafted. There are services out there for a few dollars that will backup your blog onto THEIR server… which is the best way to go.
Joe
September 1, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Hey Joe,
About 3 months ago I had a system failure and lost 10 YEARS of research and articles, thousands of documents! Even though I have Carbonite, something went radically wrong with my re-install and I ended up having to reinstall everything ONE FILE AT A TIME (a seven step process for each file) – with 119,356 files, needless to say I am still re-installing a little bit each day! Even "fail safe" back up systems FAIL sometimes!
September 2, 2010 at 8:04 am
O NO Gerrick!
My friend just had a similar problem in that what happened to him was he paid someone to code changes for his site. When he was uploading the changes it crashed. Fortunately just minutes before he had read this article and had installed a plugin in. In his case he was able to recover. I can’t imagine having to do what you are one file at a time!
August 31, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Hi Joe,
This happened to me this weekend as a matter of fact. I was so lucky that Hostgator was able to restore my blog from their servers, but my content and comments from the previous week were lost. Thankfully I'd backed that up the day before so I only lost a few comments (which I'll restore this week because I have the email copies.)
Your post would have been so helpful to me and I'm sure it will help your other readers in the event of trouble in the future!
Thanks for the information!
Heather
August 31, 2010 at 4:43 pm
I'm glad you got most of it back!
Thanks for sharing that about talking with your hosting company as they may have their own database backup. I'm sure that will help someone who reads this and they didn't have a backup.
Thanks for sharing!
Joe
August 31, 2010 at 11:13 am
Hey Joe,
Man this is such good advise. I had to learn the hard way before I started backing up my stuff… What a nightmare!
Thanks for sharing,
Anthony
August 31, 2010 at 11:23 am
Anthony!!!
Hey guy! O yeah… it’s sad, but many of us do learn this one the hard way!
Joe
August 30, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Good info!
I’m going to go do that right now!
Thanks.
August 30, 2010 at 9:44 am
Hi Joe!
Oh my.. Just the thought of having to recreate everything all over again is certainly not one I would wish upon anyone!
My blog was hacked and I felt the same fear.
I also can not stress enough about this plug….make sure it is installed TODAY, it is worth installing it now in order to avoid what could happen tomorrow!
Great Post!
Kim
August 30, 2010 at 10:31 am
No one appreciates how much effort is lost until they have something like that happen! Everyone needs to hear these stories and take action BEFORE they have a problem.
Great comment! I just want to your blog. Love what you’re doing there. Come back and promote your blog here.
August 30, 2010 at 8:44 am
You’re welcome Oliver!
The plugin that I decided to use was called “Bei Fen” By David Schneide. What backup plugin are you using?
I also wanted to invite you to come tell us a little bit about your blog at this link… http://familybusinesstips.com/promote-yourself/
To Your Success!
Joe
August 30, 2010 at 8:39 am
Hi Joe,
your advice can’t be stressed enough. Thanks for sharing. Which backup plugin do you use ?
Take care
Oliver
December 3, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Thanks for your comments!
This theme is called FRESH NEWS from WOO Themes. If you scroll down to the bottom right corner of my blog you will see a link where you can see it.