Downtime

Last night my host installed the PHP 4.4.1 upgrade, which promptly broke my weblogging tool, Wordform. Broke it to the point where the admin pages don’t load in any form, and no error is given in my logfile or in the system error log, and without any form of feedback, debugging is rather complicated. My host backed out the 4.4.1 upgrade temporarily but I’m having them reload it. I can’t have the entire server be insecure because of my application.

There has been discussion on 4.4.1 and impact on other applications, though the environment is a big factor. I wondered if the underlying code from Wordform, which is a fork of WordPress, was impacted. However, others who have been upgraded on other servers and running WordPress are working, so it is something unique to my fork. Knowing this does give me somewhere to start and appreciations to those who sent me emails to that effect.

The security issue and the upgrade release happened the end of October and I haven’t kept up with new issues in PHP since I’ve been out of town so I wasn’t prepared. That happens sometimes.

I wouldn’t pursue a fix so strenuously if only my weblog was impacted but a couple of friends are also using my tool, so I’m researching the issue and trying to find a quick solution. If it was just myself I wouldn’t be that worried. I figure my forced downtime would probably delight many of you who have felt I’ve been too critical of your companies and your software and even yourselves, and there is a nice irony in the situation. I can even join you in this delight: the biter gets bitten; how wonderfully circular–so very ouroboros. So consider it an early holiday gift from me to you. Hopefully, for my friends using Wordform, it will be a short holiday.