WordPress Server Migration Gone Bad

Looks like my ever advancing PHP experience and knowledge is coming in handy. I was able to help a major entertainment news website: http://www.bloginity.com, get back on its feet.

They use Godaddy, *shudder* and moved from a dedicated virtual, to a dedicated server. Sure, its cheap, but you get what you pay for. The migration did not go smooth ,Godaddy screwed them over. They had tons of problems. Godaddy should stick to domain names, of which they are, imho, the best to use.

This is not uncommon though for server migrations, especially moving between different control panels. I had no idea Godaddy used a simple control panel for DV’s whereas their dedicated are purely Plesk,(and a weird version of it missing links in the sidebar) . My host uses the same Plesk control panel between Dedicated virtual and dedicated so that they can migrate automagically. The only difference I am assuming would be lack of Virtuozzo.

It is almost never the fault of the user when stuff like this happens. Godaddy’s support was sub par from what I heard and it is a shame that there is little reprecussion for doing such a terrible job, destroying data, and leaving things unconfigured when someone has payed you extra for the migration. Data is one of the most sensitive and important thigns nowadays and it seems to me like alot of admins treat it as garbage. I am happy with my current web host mediatemple, even though I have had a couple of issues with them, their support has been absolutely amazing.

So to keep things short, they were missing files, database entries, etc. It wasn’t too serious( according to me 😉 ) there were a minor amount of files missing and they had a backup.

They have a very cool script that emulates Mashable’s front page functionality that allows you to keep loading more news using JavaScript and Ajax. This plugin was not pulling in some images.

Turns out, the way their system is configured is quite complex, it can pull images from more than one location, and for some reason during migration some (not all) of one or the other source was broken.

After hiring 3 guys from Russia, 1 from Argentina, and spending 36 hours on the same error, I offered my assistance.  3 hours later, of trying to get the web admin to show me the code I needed to see, I finally was granted access to do my thing.

The first issue was that they use a specific file to process images and auto crop them to a certain ratio. That file was missing. Uploading that solved some of the problem. After that, a little PHP added here, a little removed there and an hour later the plugin was working smooth; no more errors. Worked perfect throughout the night and has shown no sign of failure since!

Was a fun experience, the site is huge and is doing great so I am glad my buddy didn’t have to pull what little hair he has left out. Need any help? Just ask. I love troubleshooting.

Now the website owner owes me a nice steak at Sparks Steakhouse when I visit SMX next week in NYC ;).