A Column by John Estridge
I am requesting prayers for the technician I talked to for more than two hours concerning my blog’s malfunction.
If that person was not a drinker before our conversation, I’m afraid that person is now.
Really, I am not sure it was a person or a computer-generated conversation. If it was a computer, I think they are making repairs as I write this.
Tuesday afternoon, December 1, I went to start a new post for my blog. Usually, it takes a moment while it loads an empty form to begin the new post. This time, however, it went to a nearly blank screen but it had a rectangle with a crude, square computer-like-generated face inside with its tongue hanging out. From there, the screen gave me an error message: “There has been a critical error on your website. Learn more about debugging in WordPress.”
Immediately, I did nothing. I have found that is usually the best option. I tried to ignore it and went through my process again. And that time I got the same figure and same message, but from there, it went to the empty form. I wrote my post and then hit publish. The weird rectangle came up again leading to the blunt message.
However, I found it had published my post. So, I ignored everything again and pushed on. It got worse. Thus, I went to Plan B and shut off the computer, picked up my Kindle and started reading a book. After waiting a few minutes, I turned the computer back on, went to my blog and received the same result. Thus, I had exhausted my technical knowledge.
Then, much later in the day after My Long Suffering Wife Ruth had gone to bed, I took the message’s advice and went to where it told me to in order to learn more about debugging in WordPress.
Let me just say when I started my blog, whitewatervalleynewsandsports.com, in June, Google told me WordPress was the best blog option to go with. One of the things touted after my Google question of what is the best blog company to go with is the WoodPress’ support apparatus. It is supposed to be the best.
Really, I never want to see the other blog making companies support features if this is the best. I have not been impressed as this is the second major malfunction in five months, and I can’t really find something that resembles support with WordPress.
And this malfunction was really bad. Both problems came after updates. Of course that could be a coincidence, but I do not trust updates in anything regarding technology.
One of my granddaughters did a college paper on my attitude as it regards my Smart Phone, which in my hands, my phone is about a C or D student or lower and not smart at all. I leave it unplugged at night so it will not download new updates. She thought I was kidding at first because I do kid my grandchildren and that generation does not get my humor either but then she realized I was serious and at that point, she thought it was very funny. I thought it was practical.
Another symptom of the problem with the blog is my statistics page locked up. It locked up at 89 views on Tuesday afternoon. In the month of November, I averaged a little more than 800 views per day on my blog. I started in June and knew less about what I was doing in June than I do now and as I was to see with this situation, I don’t know a whole lot more five months later.
Through the moment the statistics froze, I had more than 146,000 views and most of those came from July through November. I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read my blog. I have been amazed and humbled by the number of people who read it and apparently enjoy it.
I have insomnia. Sometimes I wake up very early in the morning, and I am wide awake. Early Tuesday morning had been one of those times. At 2:30 a.m., I was wide awake. I came downstairs so I would not bother Ruth; I read a nonfiction book about the last months of World War II in Europe and watched the John Wayne movie “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” on the Grit Channel.
About 7 a.m., I took a nap.
Thus, I did not have a lot of sleep. I am using that as an excuse. Please remember that.
The link to learn more about debugging took me to a page about coding. I kid you not. I wrote a little code in the early 1980s. The languages I used back then to create a program to do basic payroll functions and things like that are much more dead than Latin. Latin has relevance to today’s languages. I do not believe Pascal or Basic has any relation to the code I saw on that page Tuesday. Even the English that talked about the code and, I think, tried to explain it, could have been hieroglyphics. I wish it had been hieroglyphics because, with the little pictures, I might have been able to reason the meaning out.
By that time it was late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. Tired, needing sleep and telling myself when I was rested, I would understand everything or at the very least, magic would occur and the blog would be working again, I stopped trying, if one could call it that, to fix my blog. Thus, I played some Spades against the computer, lost, blamed my computer-generated partner and went to bed, actually sleeping through the night.
It may be that part of me really does believe in magic. Wednesday morning I woke up and expected my blog to be healed. It was not.
I Googled some more and made it to the Bluehost site.
According to themeisle.com, this is the difference between Bluehost and WordPress: “When comparing Bluehost vs WordPress, the most crucial distinction to understand is that Bluehost is a web hosting provider, whereas WordPress is a fully hosted content management system (CMS).”
I really still do not completely understand what that means, well I understand words like compare but not much else. Unluckily for the technician or computer or whatever it was, I turned to Bluehost. With WordPress support, one never gets to talk to a human. One never gets to communicate in any way with a human. The only thing close is one leaves a question on a forum and hopefully someone gets back to you. They may or may not really have more knowledge than the questioner, well probably not in my case as just about everyone has more knowledge than me.
But with Bluehost, I got to talk to something using something like Messenger. However, I had to wait for someone to respond to my query. And I had to get ready to go to the doctor for a wellness physical. When I came back down showered and dressed, something had responded, waited and went offline.
So, I went for my physical and found I am still alive. I think it was touch and go for awhile before he came to that conclusion.
Ruth and I ate lunch together and then I went back to query again.
I want to admit something here and if this is sacrilegious, I apologize to everyone here and in heaven, but I prayed that God would restore my blog.
This time, after my query and my prayer, I did not leave the laptop’s side, and my query, if not my prayer, was answered.
An aside here, I drink coffee with lunch. I really drink coffee all day. Some would say there is a correlation between me drinking 12 gallons of coffee a day and insomnia. I choose to ignore that connection. Anyway, coffee causes trips to the bathroom, especially in a more than two hour period. I apologize to whatever I ended up talking to because it went with me via the laptop on those trips. There was no sound so I think everything is kosher with that situation.
From the answers I received to my first few questions, I thought I was talking to a computer and getting software-generated responses. But, as my stupid questions continued, if it was software-generated, the software was getting really frustrated. Anyone who has ever tried to teach me anything – like the kind ladies at the library for the past eight months — can relate to whomever or whatever was generating those typed words.
At some point, I started referring in my mind to the other thing with feminine pronouns, much like when I was a teenager and was driving my first car, a 1969 Chevrolet Impala with a 350, four barrel. She was affectionately called Lady by me and my friends.
My connection to possibly healing my blog would explain what she was doing, which I had no clue what she meant, and she would then say “please hold for two to four minutes.” After four minutes had passed and she had not come back with an answer, she would state “Thank you for holding.”
With things she was doing – at first she would explain what she was doing and I would understand just the verb in her sentence – and, at times, she would ask me to do different things to see if things were fixed, I tried to hide my ignorance with the question “What does that mean to me?” I was quite proud I had come up with that as I thought at the time it hid my ignorance well. Probably, it did not. I think it stunned the software or the person the first three times I asked that, but then she/software got accustomed to it.
One of her instructions was to deactivate my plug ins. I have no idea what plug ins are. I try to stay away from that area and most other areas on the blog that do not pertain to writing or publishing because I am afraid I will do damage there. I asked her how to deactivate them. She told me to go to my plug-in page and click on the deactivate button for each plug in. I was amazed to find there was a deactivation button. In my mind, I saw her/software hitting herself in the forehead. Then, she thought better of having me do it, and she said she would do it herself, which she did.
However, every time I tried the blog site after she did something, it would not work. One time when it did not work, she said it worked for her. As I was formulating a sentence trying to tell her how ignorant I am although she/software was well aware how deep my ignorance is by that time in that exercise, she came back with an admission that I was correct, and it was not fixed. I think I was bringing down her/software’s IQ.
There’s an old saying in sports: teams often play down to their opponent’s ability. People I played basketball against usually muttered that a few times in my vicinity. While she and I weren’t exactly opponents, I do believe I had dragged her/software down to my complete lack of ability/knowledge.
Finally, she got it to the point where I could post again without seeing the rectangular face – which she/software never did see — or the “message of doom and complete misunderstanding” as I had become to call it.
I think, with much dread, she asked me if there was anything else she could help me with, and I told her about my statistics page. This time she/software did not understand me so I sent her a link to the statistics page, which had totaled 17 views on Wednesday but did not move beyond that and had not moved beyond 89 on Tuesday. It also did not recognize the posts I had completed before the total Armageddon erupted.
She had to tell me “thank you for holding” a couple of times before she got back to me concerning the statistics. Now, I think she/software was talking to someone of higher authority, probably not as high an authority as I had prayed to, however. She asked me how I came to get the statistics page. The way she/software phrased the question I believe she/software thought I had hacked my way into it. I wanted to give her an LOL, or even a LMAO, but I did not. I think after she had typed that question and saw it in print, she thought that was pretty ludicrous also, almost an OMG moment.
Apparently, my statistics page was not supposed to go with the type of blog I paid for. It apparently goes with a more expensive blog type. I am not sure that is correct as her sentences seemed to be degrading at that point. I defensively explained the statistics page came on the first day I somehow put my blog online and had never malfunctioned until now. Rather she/software believed me, I will never know.
She had to ask me again if I had any more questions – I think that was part of the program or spiel they are forced to do and she really wanted to leave – and, unfortunately for her/software – I had one more question. What was I going to do for statistics without my ill-gotten statistics page?
She told me of a plug-in that would do statistics. I had to ask her how to download it. After a pause – I waited for the “please hold two to four minutes” but it did not come. Instead, she typed “click on the activation button.” And I did as I was amazed again there was actually an activation button named “acitvation.”
The new statistics page is not nearly as good as my former ill-gotten statistics page. I could tell how many views each of my posts got with my former page. My new statistics page cannot do that. I miss that. I was also getting steady views from Ireland, which I cannot explain, but now that part – telling me people from what country are viewing my blog, is also nonexistent.
She/software left at that point and another name, I cannot remember her/software’s name, came up as if I were talking to a new person. Maybe the old person/software was getting counseling. I chose not to ask about how to get the statistics to record how many views on the various posts or about the country thing. Sometimes, one must leave well enough alone, especially when the “one” is as ignorant as I am.
But the blog is working, at least for now before the next calamity strikes. Just about everything on my end is different so if there are glaring mistakes, let’s blame that.
Again, thank you for reading the posts on my blog.
And “thank you for holding.”
John, you are the BEST! Thanks for providing a bright spot after spending a whole day trying to compare Medicare Advantage Plans for my mother.