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4 days content GONE - Learn to backup

by Mike Murphy
19 replies
In the ultimate act of Boneheaded-ness, I must have clicked where I shouldn't ought have been clicking and 4 days of content on a new Wordpress based site is gone.

I've tried using the Wordpress restore function but it doesn't bring back the stuff I'm missing.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can get this tuff back or am I screwed and going to have to re-type everything?

Word to the wise....type everything into Wordpad or something FIRST and then past it into your blog so if it goes a.w.o.l. you can just put it back in.

Lesson #427,396

That's what I get for being all gung ho and being in "just gonna take action" mode! Great mode to be in as long as it's precluded by "get your sh*t together, plan the work and work the plan" mode :-)

I look forward to any tips that might bring back yesterdays version of the site....

Thanks
Mike
#backup #content #days #learn
  • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
    So nobody knows how to get this stuff back then? Is there a way? Oh the pain....
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  • Profile picture of the author Ozlem
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
      True stuff Ozlem. Who thinks to back up blog post though right? I mean, MANY sites today are built on blog platforms without actually being blogs but do people actually back them up? This people didn't and learned a harsh lesson.

      K, get over it and move on!
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  • Profile picture of the author TLTheLiberator
    I've felt your pain.

    TL
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott Burton
    Personally anything I create as content for one of my sites (this includes blog posts) ends up written while I'm offline. Thus saved to my hard drive. It usually then gets copied to my Flash Drive where it's sorted by where it belongs (sitename/directory/file). Finally it gets uploaded or copied and pasted to the site.

    Saves a lot of headaches when I lose ONE of the three.

    I don't perform backups of my blogs as often as I should, but I also can keep my losses very minimal. It just might take a little longer to put everything back the way I do things.

    As for how to retrieve something that has vanished that the wordpress restore can't fix. Unless you made a backup of the database before this had happened, I'm afraid I can't offer any suggestions.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom B
      Banned
      Mike, does your host make any backups? Check with them.
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
        Hey guys, thanks for the replies. Funny, my mentors even say...develop systems and then scale them. Backing up is definitely a system.

        Thomas...I checked with the host and it looks like the backup is totally possible but it's manual. I would have had to go in and click "backup" and save it somewhere. It also says it cannot be restored in cpanel which I find odd.

        So weird because I still thing I should have been able to do what I tried to do which was to have a post belong to more than one category. When I click onto the second category, clicked update post and then went to have a look at the site....it was all gone.

        Am I out to lunch here or should that be something I should be able to do?

        Time to type like a mad fool! Must get back on track/schedule!
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        • Profile picture of the author Tom B
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Mike Murphy View Post

          Hey guys, thanks for the replies. Funny, my mentors even say...develop systems and then scale them. Backing up is definitely a system.

          Thomas...I checked with the host and it looks like the backup is totally possible but it's manual. I would have had to go in and click "backup" and save it somewhere. It also says it cannot be restored in cpanel which I find odd.

          So weird because I still thing I should have been able to do what I tried to do which was to have a post belong to more than one category. When I click onto the second category, clicked update post and then went to have a look at the site....it was all gone.

          Am I out to lunch here or should that be something I should be able to do?

          Time to type like a mad fool! Must get back on track/schedule!
          So your saying that you added one post to multi categories and it all disappeared? That may mean the data is still there but word press isn't pulling it out correctly or there was a problem in the database.

          Get backup copy of it and send it to me. I think you already have my email address.
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          • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
            Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

            So your saying that you added one post to multi categories and it all disappeared? That may mean the data is still there but word press isn't pulling it out correctly or there was a problem in the database.

            Get backup copy of it and send it to me. I think you already have my email address.
            Hey Thomas, that would be awesome but it was all gone from ALL categories. Yep...definitely an nasty snafu in the system somewhere. I looked everywhere...and I mean everywhere, and it's like the previously typed material never existed!

            I wound up deleting the other posts except for the main one after making a word file for each one where I pasted what was left of any of it.

            In a nutshell, this is a product review site. The first part was an introduction and all of that stayed so I saved it. Everything below the intro was basically add on modules and that all went away when I tried to use multiple categories.

            Definitely going to have to re-type and also def going to save everything in wordpad as well as a fancy schmancy Wordpress backup plug-in.

            Thanks all
            Mike
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            • Profile picture of the author Allurre
              Hey bro. Don't worry. Try move on past this and consider yourself lucky it's only 4 days!

              I've lost 2 weeks of content before since I tried to change my links setting in wordpress.

              It was horrific.
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              • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
                I hear you Allure.

                Something interesting has come to light as well. Somewhere along the last few days I "upgraded" to Wordpress v 2.71. That's looking like a BIG mistake.

                Quick little trip around the ol' internets and I see MANY people discussing missing posts.....hmmmm...

                Anybody know how to revert Wordpress back to an older version? (lesson number #427,397 - Keep your Wordpress version backups when it asks you if you want to).

                How do I get a refund on Wordpress? Oh wait...it's free. :-) JK
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      • Profile picture of the author anth.elias
        Originally Posted by Thomas Belknap View Post

        Mike, does your host make any backups? Check with them.

        Great idea I think this is your best option right now. I would look into automated backup software for Wordpress, for the future. I know there is one for Joomla because I use it so there just has to be one Wordpress
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  • Profile picture of the author IMChick
    Well, look on this adventure as a learning opportunity. So with no backup, it's a complete loss and your only option is to go back to the drawing board, but with a 'twist'. While re-typing and re-loading, make sure that you have a pen and paper handy. This is for all of the sudden inspiration you will have for new and exciting topics and ideas while you're re-doing the blog. Think I'm kidding? Give it a try--your conscious mind will be engaged in this rote task, allowing your subconscious to move freely through the topic, kicking off inspirational ideas. At least that's how it's supposed to work...
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  • Profile picture of the author kevinw1
    For the future, you can use a wordpress database backup plugin to send you a backup of your posts every day. I do it for all my WP sites. Here's the one I use:
    Il Filosofo WordPress Database Backup
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  • Profile picture of the author mikebeta2
    You can check you DB to see if you're posts are still there..and in the future use a wordpress database backup plugi..
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  • Profile picture of the author dearaewi
    Mike, definite empathy here. When I was really green to WP several years ago, lost months of work and had no clue. This was before I found any forums to help or anything. Didn't take long to get a system in place that works for me to this day.

    I usually post between 2-6 articles to my main site a day. I prepare them in wordpad, word or notepad, then I post them. I have a backup scheduled daily and emailed to me. The next day I delete all the posts from the day before since I have the backup copy.

    I also make sure I back up my computer at least weekly on a separate HD just in case.

    Sometimes the hardest learned lessons are the best learned. Good luck on getting your system in place.

    Deanna
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
      Back plan is in place now. Seems so obvious looking back ! :-)

      Now then, I do blame upgrading to v2.71 for this snafu to some degree because there are stories of data loss all over the internet.

      The review plug in I was using wasn't working but I thought it was just me being daft. Nope. Turns out the person that created was using an older version of Wordpress and the fields I'm missing is a known bug.

      Now I've got to find a decent plug in that looks nice and if I have to rollback Wordpress (or if I even can!)

      Thanks everyone
      Mike
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  • Profile picture of the author IMChick
    Well, I learned something useful here. Watch out for the new version of WP and make sure you back up everything. Pretty basic, but I wasn't getting there on my own. So now I'm off to get a back up plugin.
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