First glitches and hosting problems
Ok, my huge wave of enthusiasm came to an abrupt stop yesterday, when I suddenly realized that the blog had some sort of problems which could be correlated to web hosting. The back-end I am using for this very blog behaves in a weird way, as lots of the main features are either incredibly slow or just don’t work. Permalinks don’t work. Posting does work, and that’s definitely what counts. But the blog statistics I loved so much have the nasty habit of freezing the whole website. Not just the page I am currently in: I mean the whole website. Whenever WordPress attempts to collect data everything just get stuck and I have seen even the page you’re reading outputs timeout errors. Whatever is causing such behavior is certainly related to the web-server configuration, so I have very little control over this. Since buio-omega.it will is not going to remain just a roadmap blog forever, I just assumed I could live with this reduced functionality and keep working where the real meat is.
Unluckily, yesterday was also the day I decided to update the web-shop engine to the latest version. I already made a first setup of this system some months ago and things went relatively smooth. I configured the database correctly and inserted a couple hundred products. Then I simply dropped the whole project and came back to it a few months ago, when I realized the web-shop wasn’t working anymore – generic server error. After some pondering I decided to just freeze everything once and for all – too much energy for a project that had no clear boundaries. Just the mere idea of looking in this software’s huge and sparse documentation was a huge let down. From that day, up to just a few days ago, every single thought or idea for Buio Omega just fell in that nice little box on my desk at home, for later analysis. Like I said before however, the time is now ripe and yesterday I just went strong-headed into this goddamn problem. I downloaded the latest software version, made a backup of database and files, and started a brand new installation. My teeth cringed when I read that the installation could not be completed because of server configuration. Reading a couple dozen newsletters from the provider which I never read before but straightly archived in the “Buio Omega someday” folder in my Inbox I realized the servers were not the same the website was hosted on a few months ago. Terror hit me when I got a reply from the provider that some scripting features were simply not available anymore on the actual server. That meant I had to change provider and really, if you know what it means from a programmer’s perspective, that was not something I wanted to do. That meant hunting again for cheap hosting and reading hundreds of lines of specs trying to find a hosting with all the proper features. This meant going through that hellish monstrosity that is Italian bureaucracy for changing domains, the dreaded NIC (just mentioning it sends shivers down my spine). Nightmare visions of obscure forms, endless chains of faxes, endless waits at the phone immediately profiled before my eyes.
In the end I begged the hosting provider for an alternative solution and it told me I could just switch back to the old server where the features requested by the e-store engine were satisfied. I am awaiting for the change, then I will have to move files, recreate database structures, transfer database data, check configuration files, and cross fingers while the DNS and ARP caches are refreshed. No real need to strut technical stuff I know, but sometimes I just like to talk like that eh eh.
In short, I believe things are still going for the better. In a week or so I might have the e-shop development structure up and running, and might even be able to import my old product data. The most difficult thing will be to add a colorful (so to speak) interface to the shop – but that will be the very last step.
I am also slowly reading all the old emails and notes I wrote and received during 2002-2004 while the shop was open and a flood of nostalgia and new ideas just hit me. Lots of recrimination for having handled the shop with complete incoherence and lack of dedication. The good thing however is that now I know how to handle things. Strong people are able to learn from errors and see things with perspective: great things await on this website. You have no idea.
