All At Once, ALL Applications Stopped Working...

[Ft2Judy]

2 WordPress blogs, 1 PHP forum, and 1 Gallery.

This started over a month ago (at the end of August). I have submitted a Support ticket that has been closed and re-opened so many times it's crazy.

What I think the problem is....

I found this in the Support Knowledgebase:

http://members.powweb.com/knowledgebase/read_article.bml?kbid=3415

Question/Problem
Troubleshooting: My CGI script worked fine yesterday, but now it says it can't find the path to my files. What happened?


Answer/Solution

As part of our ongoing system maintenance, we sometimes add new NetApp filer devices to help improve the performance of customer Web sites. As a result of the new hardware, customer CGI scripts (Perl, PHP) and databases that use "real" directory paths will sometimes cease to work.

If you are using real directory paths (paths that start with "/hermes/webxx/"), you will need to replace them with the correct symbolic paths ("/home/users/web/"), which are fully compatible with our shared hosting architecture.

And, as an example, this is the error message that I get when I go to one of my WP blogs:

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /hermes/web01b/bnnn/pow.powuser/htdocs/sinfonian/wp-settings.php on line 216

So, when everything stopped working on my website, I had not changed anything. It must have been something that Powweb changed. And why would ALL 4 applications stop working at the exact same time?

Like I said, this problem started over a month ago and I've had a Support ticket open for an entire month. The only response I've heard is that something must be corrupt in the database. So I uploaded a local backup copy of one of the WP SQL databases. Well, then I got a response back that the backup copy must be corrupt.

Also, just as a point of reference, I tried using the InstallCentral and creating a NEW WordPress blog. Guess what? Everything installs successfully (including the SQL database that was created) and I get this error message when I go to the new blog:

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /hermes/web01b/bnnnn/pow.powuser/htdocs/sept6blog/wp-settings.php on line 247

So something is set up wrong with Powweb... I don't know what it is. I'm to the point of pulling out my hair!!!!!!

[IanS]

Did you try doing what the knowledgebase suggests, replacing the /hermes/web01b/.... section with the 'home/users/web' part?

[Ft2Judy]

Did you try doing what the knowledgebase suggests, replacing the /hermes/web01b/.... section with the 'home/users/web' part?

The knowledgebase suggests doing that but I have no idea WHERE to do it at. Plus, I have 2 WP, 1 Coppermine and 1 PHP forum...

Can you help and tell me what files I need to make the replacement in? I did a search for "hermes" in the wp-settings and the wp-config files (in WordPress) and couldn't find "hermes"....

Why would Powweb make such a change and then just leave customers hanging with applications that will no longer work? I am very upset about this and the fact that I am getting no where with support even after a month. I mean isn't it a bit careless to just start moving paths around on all of your customers and leaving them to try and figure out what you did that made their websites and applications not working?

Thanks so much for your help!!! I am really at my wits end and I have over a year and a half of blog information and pictures, etc that I can't access.

[Dbrazzell]

Can you post an example URL of one of the applications that's not working.

I dont suspect the paths are at fault. There is likely something else that's the culprit.

[snowmaker]

The symbolic paths associated with your account can be found here, OPS|SERVICES|HTTP (http://ops.powweb.com/member/settings.bml), and probably several other places in OPS as well. Even if this isn't a path problem, they should be changed, and if it isn't a path problem, this probably won't solve the problem.

[Croc Hunter]

I had a similar problem last weekend only the error message for Wordpress phpBB ZenPhoto etc was call to undefined "<" on line 123 in /hermes/web01b/bnnn/pow.powuser/htdocs.../includes/user.php. Restoring each applications files from a previous back-up fixed them. So yeah it's most likely a file issue not path. I also noticed quite a few folders were 777 so I ran a recursive 755 on all. My CGI error log is empty so I have no idea what or who caused it.

[entrecon]

Any chances the OPs CGI was shut down. Seems like another user was shut down recently for sending out a lot of e-mail.

[Croc Hunter]

One of my clients reported the same problem to me today, MySQL driven applications failing. Wordpress error:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '<' in /hermes/web09/bnnn/pow.user/htdocs/wp-includes/default-widgets.php on line 1032
OPS FileManager showed:
default-widgets.php 37.88 09/08/2009 13:35 0644
They did not edit this file. Their ZenCart threw all kinds of errors yet two other Wordpress installs on the same account have only displayed "random" errors over the last month or so. I was able to restore files from 48 hrs ago and fix Powwebs stuff up. Unless Ft2Judy kept her own daily backups I'm afraid my "fix" is not an option as Powweb OPS only keeps 48-72 hrs worth of backups. I just posted in case it helps others to narrow down the cause.