FIELD BLOGGER BREAKDOWN

When a field blogger in the field gets locked out.

There I was, gentle BoomerPdx reader, in the field. A field blogger.

Just outside was blue sky, bright sun, and a swimming pool with northern lights at night.

It wasn’t night time, not yet, when I found my problem.

The problem wasn’t the temptation to blow off the day for blue sky, bright sun, or a swimming pool with northern lights. Field blogger never gives in to that combination.

Instead we like to say we ‘blog.’ Besides, it was Arizona. No one goes outside.

I was inside doing what field blogger does, which is taking notes, making outlines, and planning the week’s work in the field.

Until that moment I’ve had no problem with my MacBook, WordPress, or Bluehost. Those are the three vehicles that drive BoomerPdx to the small screen.

And I couldn’t get past my login, my admin page.

Quick, check my mood profile.

The first thing field blogger does on a shut out is perform the login a few times.

Give it an hour or so of doing the same thing over and over until you realize you are the definition of idiot, or moron, or whatever you call the dipstick who does the same thing and expects different results.

One. More. Login. Please. Please. Please.

But no. Everything stops at the login and goes blank.

After more a/b testing, or screwing around in panic, I looked outside.

The fear welling up was more than real, and the pool lights were right in sync.

I could drown my fear in booze, jump in the water, or figure it out.

I’ve somehow killed my webpage, my blog, my online signature.

No one else gets into the back end of BoomerPdx but me, and no one should. Which is what everyone says just before they’ve been hacked.

Fear was winning the day.

Was it my browser? Did Firefox turn on me. I googled it up. Clean the cache, delete cookies, flush history.

Did it work this time? No.

Checking the pool mood lights for better.

Fear or lovable? Not feeling the love.

Time to login for another hour? Already did that.

Hours wasted for what? I could be outside, not locked in a death match with software.

Who wins that one? It was getting tough and I wanted to get going. But that never works.

What went wrong? Did Bluehost take a dive? Where would you start looking to find out?

Isitdownrightnow.com had the answer. Was it down right now? No.

How does that feel? I checked the pool lights.

Mixed emotions felt about right.

It wasn’t the hosting company, so what is it?

WordPress? It had to be wordpress.

And it didn’t look good, until I noticed the dates. Some of the problems were seven years old.

If you have a problem solved by seven year old advice, you haven’t been keeping up.

Not Bluehost? Not WordPress? Not the browser or computer? I was feeling a little better narrowing the blame.

Was it time for calm? Or time to call customer service at Bluehost.

To keep the calm in check I dialed them up.

“My computer seems dead and I can’t log into my wordpress blog I host with you guys.”

“What’s the name of your site?”

“BoomerPdx.com.”

“And the last four letters of your password?”

“Well, I’m in the field, see. I’m a field blogger, not a desk jockey tied to a room. But the room is where my login book it.”

“You have a login book? You haven’t memorized your logins?”

“Not all of them.”

“There’s not much I can do until you can verify ownership.”

“Well, then. For background I don’t think my problem is with wordpress, but I recently upgraded a few widgets.”

“Which ones?”

“I could tell you if I could log in.”

“There’s the problem.”

“Let me ask this: If I don’t upgrade software what happens?”

“You could be vulnerable to hackers.”

“And they’d take over my site? Maybe make it impossible to login?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s where I am now, so I’m balanced on that count.”

“Can you remember your password’s last four characters?”

“Try ****.”

“Not working. Anything else?”

“Try ****.”

“That did the trick.”

“What about the widget update?”

“I think you mean plugins.”

“Thank you. Plugins. Last time in I updated jetpack by wordpress.com”

“I don’t use jetpack myself. Too many parts with too many problems. Looking, looking, and yes. Your jetpack upgrade locked you out.”

The tech and I figured out how to delete and reinstall jetpack, and here I am.

The moral of the blog post?

The more tech goodies you load onto a business site, blog, or other website, the more things to go wrong.

It’s a compatibility thing. Will it happen again, I asked?

“Yes. Probably. You’ll be the first to know.”

After this I’ll make the call to the hosting company first.

Thank you Bluehost for finding the problem.

Checking my mood color chart one last time.

Color me purple.