Locked out of WordPress

Ah, the joys of content management systems.

I had been away from this site for a while, focusing my attention on other projects, both on and off the web.

When the notion to finally make a post hit me, I returned — only to discover that I couldn’t log in. Strangely, the site appeared to be working fine otherwise, so I put off trying to find a fix for a while, since I had other more important matters to tend to.

However, it bugged me, and tonight it bugged me enough to actually figure out what had gone wrong. It turned out to be a faulty plugin.

It is this kind of stuff that caused me to avoid content management systems (CMS) on my websites for a long time. For years, I either used a WYSIWYG editor or hand coded the page when I couldn’t get the WYSIWYG editor to do what I wanted it to do.

Eventually, the convenience and speed of the CMS won out over my concerns about losing control over my website by having so many complicated “moving parts” that I don’t know what the system is doing, nor do I necessarily know how to fix it when something goes awry. If I code it myself, I know what it does; if someone else codes it, good luck!

Usually, I can find a solution after a fair amount of hair pulling, but it can be a bit stressful — especially if it is really important content. I learned early on the hard lessons found in three very important words: “Backups”, “backups”, and oh, by the way, did I mention “backups”?

In an CMS environment, and websites which rely upon databases, you dare not get caught without a good backup. Preferably, a recent one.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to rely upon that this time, but backups have saved my skin countless times over at governamerica.com where I have used them more times than I care to talk about here.