by Anura Guruge
on August 18, 2023
It was relatively short — just 18 minutes.
BUT, it was the 2nd OUTAGE in 18-Days (i.e., less than 3 weeks).
Prior to this, most of this year, ‘HostGator‘ has been quite reliable.
This is getting me concerned.
by Anura Guruge
on July 31, 2023
To be fair, as far as I can remember this is the FIRST outage of any note I have suffered on this site/blog in 2023. But, in a way, that is also why it comes as a JARRING shock when it happens. You get lulled into a sense of complacency & then, ‘BANG’, you get a message saying your Website is down.
I pay BIG BUCKS (& I am not joking or being facetious) for ‘WordPress’ ‘Jetpack‘. One of the key things it does is regularly monitor Website availability.
Getting a message from Jetpack saying that the site is down is not pleasant. Your first reaction is to check it, i.e., check the site. They were right. WOW.
All sorts of bad scenarios go through your head. Has the site been HACKED. What will it take to restore it.
I tried hard to be patient. So, rather than continuing to check repeatedly, I decided to wait. That paid off. But, NOT fun. Just glad to have it back.
by Anura Guruge
on January 9, 2023
I only used the WordPress APP on my phone to check Stats. I do all of my WordPress blog postings, updates & maintenance from my desktop PC. So, I don’t really use the WP APP that much.
For the last few days, everytime I opened the WP APP, I would get a pop-up from ‘Jetpack’ telling me to install the Jetpack APP. I had no idea that this was not a recommendation — BUT a COMMAND. I had ignored the request because the WP APP was working & gave me the Stats I sought.
But then tonight the Stats stopped working on the WP APP!
Having dealt with WP for over 20-years I kind of had a hunch. They have disabled Stats to force me to install Jetpack. I WAS, alas, RIGHT!
The above e-mail confirms that.
I installed the Jetpack APP & BINGO I had my Stats again. Even without being told I uninstalled the WP APP.
So, that is the story.
IF you use the WP APP look into this. The Jetpack APP is supposed to work whether you have Jetpack on your Website/blog or NOT.
by Anura Guruge
on August 2, 2021
Follow Anura Guruge on WordPress.com
I had signed up for ‘CodeGuard‘ backup for this Website/blog when I got my hosting package with ‘HostGator‘ in June 2021. I got a bundled deal (or sorts) at quite a promotional discount. HostGator (& their sister outfit ‘BlueHost‘) as most people know likes to ‘encourage‘ you to get CodeGuard & ‘SiteLock Security‘ as part of your hosting. Yes, I had done my research BUT my main priority was to get this Website/blog up & running ASAP — & then worry about exactly how I wanted to refine, optimize & finetune offerings. And that is exactly what happened with Backup.
I had got the ‘basic’ CodeGuard offering — which is what I had been steered towards. It only comes with 1G of storage. I blew past that this weekend. I deleted a month worth of backups. But, I was still above 1G. I pruned it down to just 3-days of backups. Still not enough. Yes, it was easy enough to upgrade BUT I realized that I would be on a slippery slope. 3-months down the road I would have to upgrade again. This Website/blog is NOT getting any smaller. So, I looked around again.
I already had WordPress’ ‘JetPack‘. It was one of the first plugins I installed. I have been with ‘WordPress.com‘ for 13-years. Though it had never been all plain sailing, on the whole, I had managed to get what I wanted accomplished. I do know the differences & tie-ins between the ‘.com’ & ‘.org’ arms. But, I already had Jetpack & as such I was already dealing with the ‘.com’ even though I was self-hosted. Plus, push come to shove, who better to backup a WordPress site than WordPress itself?
But the kicker was, & I sought confirmation from them via e-mail, the UNLIMITED backup storage. Pay for a year & DONE. No constant harassment to upgrade (at least for more storage). It wasn’t exactly cheap, BUT it wasn’t outrageous either. For what they offer, it was fair. So, I did the deal.