Press on through the struggles -

byEmmaus

359 followers

Updated 9 years ago

Why is it that technical issues can seem so insurmountable at times?

A few days ago I ended up breaking a lot of major functions on my website. Posts weren't displaying, my user-friendly sitemap was broken, images weren't functioning correctly, and my website linked posts on my social media accounts were all messed up!

I had no idea how to fix any of this, was I going to have to start over?

What I caused:

I used a particular plugin that absolutely broke every single post on my website. Whenever you'd visit the post, not content would show up at all. The only thing that showed was the featured image for that particular post. My user-friendly sitemap was broken too. This plugin also broke all my image links in my social media accounts. That being said, I also didn't backup my website at all before I made changes with this plugin (despite warnings in the plugin itself to do so).

What I tried:

- I contacted support and they did their best to help, but the issue I caused wasn't something that was able to be fixed with a backup. They were great and immediately replied to all my inuiries

- I messaged Kyle for help. He got back to me in no time with a number of different things I could try to fix the issues and get back to work again.

- I asked around in support and a few members had some helpful advice for me.

*None of the above solutions ended up fixing the issue.

What I felt:

- I felt pretty much like a moron for not backing up my website ahead of time. I also felt like I was asking other people to waste their time for something I could have easily avoided if I wouldn't have rushed things and learned how to do a proper backup of my website first. I had put so much time and energy into my website, did I seriously break it with just 1 seemingly unimportant image file name changer plugin?

What I found:

- After I calmed down a bit and started lightly experimenting on a few possible fixes for all of these issues, I found a solution!

The Solution:

All I had to do was click on "Update" on each post in WordPress that was ever published. After clicking on "Update" in each post, they all displayed correctly afterwords! I could not have imagined a simpler fix and I found this solution by being patient and doing a bit of trial and error!

- The same was true of the Sitemap page. I just clicked "Update" and every post worked again and was showing content.

- I ended up deleting the content from my social media, but I was going to do this anyways for other reasons, then republish it again.

What I've Learned:

1. Do not make any substantial changes on your website without doing a full and "real" backup of your website.
2. Backup your website before downloading and activating new plugins.
3. Actually perform steps 1 & 2 instead of imagining that nothing bad will happen.
4. Don't panic when huge technical issues arise, just ask for help.
5. Learn how to do a proper and "real" backup. The plugin I use for backups is "Updraft Plus". You can upload your backups to Google drive with this plugin and others.
6. Don't do anything drastic to try to fix your website until you've actually diagnosed the issue. You don't want to cause even further issues do you?

So, there you have it! Press on through your struggles. You will face technical issues, you will face writers block, you will not meet every single goal, you will not feel that each and every post in the beginning has monetary value, and you will not always feel like writing and researching in order to produce more content.

Feelings will serve to hurt you if they aren't conducive to achieving your goals. Successful business owners aren't ruled by feelings, they're guiding by real data, planning, and action.

So, lets flush the times of pessimism, leap over the hurdles, and keep making progress.

Bryan-