WordPress blog admin broken

[eN0ch]

Hi folks,

Just visited my self-hosted WordPress blog. The public view works fine and everything that should be there is there. But when I login to my admin dashboard, it shows zero's everywhere (0 posts, 0 comments, 0 categories, etc). So somehow the dashboard can't see it's own data!?

Never seen this before. Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

[Brandon]

This is a stupid one, but are there comments and everything on your site? This might be more of a Wordpress problem, and posting on there site should clear it up. We don't actually provide support for 3rd party scripts.

 

[eN0ch]

Thanks, Brandon. Yes the comments are all there (as are all the posts).

Anyway - I did wonder whether this was the place to ask my question. I'm not geeky enough to pick whether it's a server issue or a blog platform issue. I'll see how I go with WP.

Thanks
Edit:
Hi,

Back again ... After a bit of research in WP help, I think maybe this is an issue for you guys.

There's an issue with one of the plugins in my WP installation. I haven't changed anything in quite a while, and it's a very widely used plugin. It's called "akismet" and it's a spam filter.

Well anyway it's bringing up a message with a link to a page, which includes the following:

... and this is the link that it refers to.

It's all geek to me but I trust not to you. Can you fix it? Do I need to open a ticket?

Thanks.

 

[Corey]

I've never really used WP but on vBulletin this happens sometimes... in the admin area I have the option to 'recount' everything. It goes back through the DB and counts up everything and makes sure everything matches up. Does WP have anything like that?

 

[eN0ch]

Now that's what I call a quick response, Corey! Thanks very much ..

There's nothing in the WP dashboard I'm aware of that fits that description. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm not enough of a geek to understand a lot of this stuff. Can you offer any further clues that might make sense to a webserver noob?
Edit:
I've tried all I can on this one. Has anyone had a chance to check the info in my second post (replying to Branden)?

Thanks.

 

[galaxyAbstractor]

Have you asked the wordpress support?

Their support channel is on #wordpress on the IRC server irc://irc.freenode.org

 

[eN0ch]

Thanks for that. Just tried the IRC thing (as a total IRC noob, I might add ... )

Here's what they said to tell you guys:

tell them you are trying to use akismet for wordpress which needs to connect to external servers and it won't work because these servers are unreachable with the current setup

This was after they'd got me to do a test.php thingy, and that brought up the following:

Warning: phpinfo() has been disabled for security reasons in /home/en0ch/public_html/test.php on line 1

What now? Thanks.

 

[adamparkzer]

The issue with Akismet servers being blocked was brought up in this thread quite a while ago:

http://forums.x10hosting.com/feedback-suggestions/100387-allow-akismet-servers-firewall.html

Corey offered to help out, but nobody with the problem followed through on that thread.

Also, the test.php thing that you were told to do won't work, as the PHP function in that file, phpinfo(), was disabled for security purposes.

 

[eN0ch]

Thanks for that link. The last post in the thread suggests it might be intermittent?? (And it's only just started happening for me.)

This isn't a complaint against you or anyone else on here. But I'm starting to feel like the meat in the bureaucratic sandwich - i.e. I'm being bounced between x10 and wordpress ... As a noob I don't understand half the issue (or the language used to describe it) anyway. So I'm basically reliant on others (in both places).

The WP techs reckoned that the phpinfo warning meant that x10 has turned off a basic function that should be switched on; whereas you're telling me that the test they gave me wouldn't have worked. So I'm :dunno: confused ... :dunno:

Anyway what can I now do? Should I add a comment to the other thread about akismet? Or just sit tight here? Or ... ?

 

[eN0ch]

Thanks for that link. The last post in the thread suggests it might be intermittent?? (And it's only just started happening for me.)

This isn't a complaint against you or anyone else on here. But I'm starting to feel like the meat in the bureaucratic sandwich - i.e. I'm being bounced between x10 and wordpress ... As a noob I don't understand half the issue (or the language used to describe it) anyway. So I'm basically reliant on others (in both places).

The WP techs reckoned that the phpinfo warning meant that x10 has turned off a basic function that should be switched on; whereas you're telling me that the test they gave me wouldn't have worked. So I'm confused ... :dunno:

Anyway what can I now do? Should I add a comment to the other thread about akismet? Or just sit tight here? Or ... ?

 

[adamparkzer]

Thanks for that link. The last post in the thread suggests it might be intermittent?? (And it's only just started happening for me.)

This isn't a complaint against you or anyone else on here. But I'm starting to feel like the meat in the bureaucratic sandwich - i.e. I'm being bounced between x10 and wordpress ... As a noob I don't understand half the issue (or the language used to describe it) anyway. So I'm basically reliant on others (in both places).

The WP techs reckoned that the phpinfo warning meant that x10 has turned off a basic function that should be switched on; whereas you're telling me that the test they gave me wouldn't have worked. So I'm :dunno: confused ... :dunno:

Anyway what can I now do? Should I add a comment to the other thread about akismet? Or just sit tight here? Or ... ?

When I said that the test wouldn't have worked, I meant that the test would not have successfully been carried out. I didn't intend to mean that the test would've been unfulfilling to its purpose.

Also, turning on phpinfo() will not solve the Akismet problem.

What I suggest you do is to come in contact with the head administrator, Corey, and ask him about this, either through the IRC or through the Feedback section of the forums.

 

[Brandon]

Yes, we have a few blocked functions for security reasons but for the most part they should not be used by Wordpress. Have you noticed that Akismet problem before, and if you disable Akismet will it work?

By disabling it, you can narrow it down to that one problem.

 

[Corey]

This should be resolved... can you verify?

 

[anoviceyup]

My WordPress blog is also experiencing this problem. The WordPress FAQ page for this problem says that the following are necessary for the Akismet spam filter to work.

- PHP’s fsockopen and gethostbynamel functions must not be disabled (they are enabled by default in PHP)
- TCP connectivity to akismet.com

The IP addresses that the akismet spam filter uses are:

72.233.69.3
72.233.69.2
66.135.58.62
66.135.58.61

The FAQ, intended for web hosts, is at http://blog.akismet.com/akismet-hosting-faq/
Edit:
Sorry. Forgot to mention that I'm on the Lotus server.
Edit:
Latest update (just checked again after posting):

The error message has disappeared. A few seconds after I posted. That was really fast!

Thanks!

 

[Brandon]

Good to hear it's working, once the OP can verify his blog is all set we are good .

 

[eN0ch]

Thanks everyone. And sure enough .. yes indeed I now have everything working as it should.

So, Corey / Brandon, can I clarify ... Is this something you've just tweaked to fix this problem? Or could it happen again?

Pardon the ignorance ...


Oh yeah, Brandon .. yes, when it was happening I did narrow it down to Akismet. And disabling Akismet fixed it. (Thankfully now it's working with Akismet.)

 

[Corey]

This was a permanent fix. Unless they change their servers.

 

[eN0ch]

Great - thanks for clarifying, Corey. ... And thanks again for the fantastic service - especially considering I'm a free account holder