I lost admin access!!

[jpb1958]

Hi everyone

I'm not sure what section of the forum this post should go so apologies if I'm in the wrong place.

Anyway, a few days ago I was not able to access the admin side of all of my sites. I either got a blank page or I got an error message. Every one of my sites were not accessible for me to add posts etc.

I use Hostgator and after talking with the 'live chat' agent, he couldn't solve the problem quickly so he created a ticket.

The reply I got was that it appears that a plugin I had installed caused the issue.

So the guys/gals at HG sorted it out for me. Hooray!!

This has brought into focus how important it is to make backups of my sites. But I'm confused as to where to go from here.

Hostgator themselves say this...."A full backup must be restored by the root user for the server. We will restore your full backups for free. Simply fill out this form. When you get to the instructions, please indicate the name of the file and where we can find it".

Or I can use a site like this...http://www.site-vault.com/

So I'm all at sea what to do. Free service or paid? What are the pros and cons? Hostgator for free or a dedicated backup service?

And while I'm on the subject, would I be right in thinking that the backup is downloaded to my pc?...so how the hell do I upload it should I need to?

[Jack]

What I would regardless of whether or not you get a service like that, it to go out right now and buy WPTwin. This script is really cool. You can backup and restore your site in literally seconds.

The other thing I can suggest if you have a problem like what you had. If you know or suspect that your problem is caused by a plugin or a theme. You can do this:

Use your ftp client to log into your site. Navigate to your plugins folder and simply rename it! The default wordpress name it "plugins." Simply name it something else. You can just take out the "s" or add a random letter.

You'll then be able to log in to your admin panel (if it is a plugin that caused your problem). What this does is disable all of your plugins. You can then rename your plugins folder via ftp and start activating your plugins one at a time. You can do the same thing with a theme.

This may seem like a drastic step, but it's not really that big of a deal, especially if you're faced with losing your entire site!

[jpb1958]

Thanks for the reply Jack
The guy at Hostgator did this but he told me that 'white space' had been inserted into my php files and he was having to go through my files one at a time.

I dunno if this was caused by a plugin though?

Goog tip re WTwin. I will look into it.