Sometimes it just helps to search!
Recently, I was alerted to a problem with DYH and Digg. Whenever a post was submitted to Digg, the user was greeted with the following message instead of the usual Digg verbage:
This link does not appear to be a working link. Please check the URL and try again.
A quick Google of [Digg + ”This link does not appear to be a working link. Please check the URL and try again.”] turned up this page, which indicated the fact that this issue was due to an incompatibility between Digg and the Bad Behavior plugin.
Since I’m a huge fan of the Bad Behavior plugin and what it’s done to eliminate the spam that this site was seeing, I was reluctant to just remove it.
Thankfully, there’s a workaround, though it gets into php code, so it’s a bit messy for Wordpress beginners. However, if you use the Bad Behavior plugin on your own site, and want Digg to Digg, then do the following:
- Open up the Bad Behavior plugin folder
- Open up the Bad Behavior subfolder
- Open a file called “whitelist.inc.php” in a text editor
- Find the following text:
// Includes four examples of whitelisting by IP address and netblock.
$bb2_whitelist_ip_ranges = array(
“10.0.0.0/8″,
“172.16.0.0/12″,
“192.168.0.0/16″,
// “127.0.0.1″,
);
- Add Digg’s crawler address (64.191.203.34) as follows:
// Includes four examples of whitelisting by IP address and netblock.
$bb2_whitelist_ip_ranges = array(
“10.0.0.0/8″,
“172.16.0.0/12″,
“192.168.0.0/16″,
“64.191.203.34″,
// “127.0.0.1″,
);
- Save, and re-upload the “whitelist.inc.php” file
Moral of the story: Almost any problem can be solved with a little bit of Google.
Apparently, in addition to causing a DNS error that gave DYH a wonderful Error 500 Internal Server Error front page for a few days, it looks like my web hosting company was also kind enough to corrupt my Wordpress install as well, which means I just spent the last 6 hours updating Wordpress, which means that I then had to update my K2 theme install so that it would play nicely with the newly installed Wordpress, which means that I had to update my custom K2 theme so that it would play nicely with the newly installed K2, which means that I’m not exactly happy with my web hosting company right now.
Because of this whole endeavor, I’m definitely going to be switching soon though, so once I do, get ready for a revealing and then a thorough bad mouthing of my current host. Anyone have any suggestions for a new one?
Unfortunately, this unexpected delay has also set back my triumphant return by a few hours, but it looks like everything is running somewhat smoothly for now, so expect a return to normalcy by the end of today (hopefully).
Thanks to everyone for sticking with me through this trying time, and I’m looking forward to what DYH has in store for ‘08, so I hope you are too.
I fought the server and the…server won; I fought the server and the…server won.
Unfortunately, due to a “problem with the DNS records for didntyouhear.com” this site has been down for the past four days, and anyone who visited (myself included) was handed little more than a 500 Error page.
In addition to the site going down, this DNS error also knocked out my email server, so for everyone who sent me a kind (and much appreciated) email to let me know that the site was down, I want to say thanks, and let you know that your message just came though, so I apologize for my delayed response.
The good news is that the error is now fixed, and Didn’t You Hear will be returning with full force (and then some) on Monday; so if you’ve lost all hope, then please come back on Monday for a reminder of why you started to visit DYH in the first place.
For any of you with blogs of your own out there, just remember: Backups are your friend. I try to backup as frequently as possible, but I still don’t do it enough, and all I could think of during this issue was, “Man, what if this error manages to clean out my site’s data as well”.
Thankfully it didn’t, but the potential was definitely there, so remember: Backup, Backup, Backup.
[Photo Via: jurvetson]
For those of you who came by here in the past few days and noticed everything was a little out of whack, I apologize. I’ve been having some problems with the WordPress database lately, but hopefully I’ll have them all worked out soon. Thanks for your patience, and keep checking back for all the latest and greatest at Didn’t You Hear.
Edit: Because of the problems, I’m extending the deadline for entering into last week’s TGI Friday contest until noon (Pacific time) this Wednesday, February 14th. If you wanted to win a few of those Prickie buttons, you’ve got a couple more days to do it, so get your entry in today.
~Cory
