Why did my WordPress blog vanish?

April 11, 2007 2:13 AM

I was trying to backup my WordPress blog using the "WordPress Database Backup" Plugin, and I tried changing the chmod remote file permissions. Now my blog has vanished. Where did it go?

I should mention that I am computer illiterate, so I don't really know what I'm doing.

OK, so: I activated the plugin and tried running it. I got the following messages:

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WARNING: Your wp-content directory is NOT writable! We can not create the backup directory.
/home/httpd/vhosts/websitenamehere.com/httpdocs/blog/wp-content/backup-b7b59/

WARNING: Your backup directory is NOT writable! We can not create the backup directory.
/home/httpd/vhosts/websitenamehere.com/httpdocs/blog/

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So I went to this page:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/84133

Which said that I should adjust the CHMOD settings for the wp_content folder. I looked at it using WS_FTP LE and said, "I see -- I'll just check the 'write' boxes under 'group' and 'other.'"

Now, when I try and go to the blog, all I get is a blank white screen. Going back to WE_FTP and unchecking the boxes did not bring my blog back.

So: How do I get the blog back? and how do I do a backup?

(Before doing any of this, I copied the entire blog folder over to my hard drive -- if that helps.)

Thanks!

posted by Karlos the Jackal to computers & internet (9 comments total)

On certain hosts in certain situations, chmodding folders 777 will cause Apache not to serve them anymore for security reasons. You might try a recursive chmod to, say, 755, from the root down.
posted by wackybrit at 2:41 AM on April 11, 2007

I can't think of any good reason why adding write permissions on wp-content would do anything, so first things first: Can you get back into the Wordpress admin interface? Is your wp-content folder missing any files?
posted by chrominance at 2:42 AM on April 11, 2007

Chrominance: Yes, I can get to the admin interface.

I can't tell anything about my wp-content folder; when I try to open it with my FTP program I get this message:

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550 wp-content: Permission denied

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Wackybrit: I have no idea what you've just said. *wince*
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 3:20 AM on April 11, 2007

Here's a screen cap of the WS_FTP program showing how the file permissions are currently set. Checking the "write" box in the second and third columns are what caused the problem. (I've since unchecked them.)

Screen Cap
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 3:26 AM on April 11, 2007

Try checking all three 'execute' boxes for wp-content.
posted by mbrubeck at 5:03 AM on April 11, 2007

Ya, not intuitive, but directories need to be "executable" to be readable.
posted by kamelhoecker at 5:20 AM on April 11, 2007

It's not intuitive until you persuade your intuition that "execute" actually means "use". Then it's not so bad. You need x permissions on any directory that's part of the pathname of any file you're trying to use. For example, to be allowed to read file /home/flabdablet/foo/bar.txt, as well as r permission for bar.txt itself, I'd need x permission for /home, /home/flabdablet and /home/flabdablet/foo.

r permission on a directory lets you list its contents, but not use them: without x permission, you can't cd into it or access any of the files inside it.

x permission without r permission lets you access files inside a directory, but only if you already know their names - you can't do a directory listing to find them.
posted by flabdablet at 6:20 AM on April 11, 2007

You can try changing the permissions from you cpanel (the URL your host gave you when you first set up your site). It has a built-in file manager and you can chmod (change file permissions) from there. Here is a video tutorial on how to do it.

I've had similar problems in the past using FTP programs so using the file manager in cpanel bypassed all of that.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 6:57 AM on April 11, 2007

Okay -- I tried changing the permissions on the wp-content folder to check all the boxes -- I guess that's "777."

This caused my blog to reappear. So far so good; I tried making a backup.

I got the message:

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The backup file could not be saved! Please check the permissions for writing to your backup directory and try again.

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Using the ftp program, I saw that I had created a backup folder in the wp-content folder, but that it was marked as not executable.

So I used the ftp program to try and change the permissions on the backup folder and was told that I did not have permission to do that. Using the cpanel (as detailed by Kevin Skomsvod, above) I found that the "owner" of the folder was "apache," not my owner name.

Not seeing a way to change that myself, I called my ISP, who switched the owner name from "apache" to my own. I can now do backups.

Thanks, all!
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 12:40 PM on April 11, 2007 [1 favorite]