September 25, 2008
Blog Operations Department
How Joel Rosenberg Cost Me $99
I just upgraded the Movable Type blogging software that powers Windpundit from version 4.01 to version 4.21. I did it for all the usual reasons---better, faster, stronger...
No, maybe not stronger.
Movable Type is supposed to be easy to upgrade. Just download the gzipped archive of the latest version and dump it right on top of the existing MT installation. Then I just login to the control panel and it kicks off the automatic upgrade process which integrates the new data files, updates the database, and so on.
Everything seemed to go pretty smoothly. I did the upgrade early this morning and Windypundit was back up in a few minutes.
Then I tried to log in and post something, and all I got was a missing-file error. No menus, no posting interface, nothing.
I poked around and couldn't find anything, so I logged a support ticket at Six Apart, who make the Movable Type blogging engine. I also logged a support ticket with my web hosting provider, Downtown Host, in case they saw anything unusual on the server.
The Downtown Host people got back to me pretty quickly, and we exchanged a few ideas, but they couldn't find anything. An hour later, Six Apart sent me a message back asking for information and pointing out that my support agreement had expired.
The Six Apart support agreement costs $99 per year, but I decided to renew it because last year they helped me with a problem that I never would have found myself. After renewing, I answered their questions and told them I had renewed my support agreement.
Two hours later, they asked a couple more questions.
After another hour, they suggested the problem might be in the ImageMagick toolkit used by MovableType. I had found dozens of 25MB core dumps from the perl interpreter on the web site, indicating that perl had crashed while trying to build the main user interface dashboard.
I asked Downtown Host to reinstall ImageMagick for me, and they did, but that didn't help.
After this, I tried something on my own. I dumped the fresh Movable Type 4.21 install into a separate folder and renamed the folders so that the fresh install would run Windypundit. Then I tried to login to the publishing back end again.
This time it worked. Of course, without all the custom templates and plugins I use, the main Windypundit front page was totally hosed up. But I had proven that the problem was with something in the Movable Type software folder---as opposed to a database problem or a server configuration problem---and it was some file that my old folder had in it that was different or missing in the fresh install.
So I put my upgraded MT folder back and downloaded both it and the fresh install to my PC, ran a comparison between the directories, and spent started poking about temporarily deleting or changing files on the live website until I finally found the change that made it start working again.
Movable Type is indeed mysterious. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but all it took to get Movable Type working again was to delete one small image file sitting in the mt-static/upport/uploads folder.
Here. Take a look at the culprit:
That's Joel Rosenberg of Twin Cities Carry. I guess he tried to upload a profile picture of himself when he was leaving comments on my blog, and somehow that one file made everything blow up.
12 Comments
Leave a comment
.
Well, I'm sorry, honest. I didn't know I was trying to upload a picture of myself, even, and I didn't mean to break your blog.
Huh. It looks like you signed in via LiveJournal authentication. I guess the protocol must pass your avatar image. And then something deep inside Movable Type barfed on it. Fascinating.
As long as there's no hard feelings, I'm fine with it. Never signing in, again, though, if I can comment quasi-anonymously.
Eh, do whatever you want. Not your fault that Movable Type is a little flaky.
Glad to see you got this figured out.
That's why you should use WordPress. :D
As I understand it, Movable Type is the more capable platorm at the high end (e.g. Huffington Post sized blogging), but if I was starting now, I'd probably blog with Wordpress. I don't think it's worth the trouble to change, however.
I don't know - WPMu does really well - CNN uses it, NYT does, Harvard does.
It isn't worth the trouble, to be honest. I agree with you there. I was just giving you a hard time :)
I will say that Wordpress is much better than typepad and that if you were on typepad I'd recommend putting up with the hassle to make the switch.
I'm a programmer at heart, so the advantage of Movable Type---and non-hosted Wordpress---over TypePad or Blogger is that I can tinker with the code if I want to. I don't do it as often as I'd like, but there's always something I want to add to the site.
Interesting comments....I'm sitting here debating "TypePad" vs. "WordPress"......
Each time I think I've chosen the one I want to use, someone recommends the other platform. Arrghhh..
I've been playing around with WordPress a bit lately -- http://60sec.twincitiescarry.com -- and found the installation via Dreamhost's one-click install very easy.
Thinking of moving my Open Sites LJ to there; it's got features that I like. That said, while I started programming on an IBM 1620 (no, that wasn't the year it was built), I've never thought of myself as much of a programmer, and if I can break Movable Type with my friggin' picture I probably should count on keeping my fingers away from code.
To be fair to the Movable Type people, they claim that the broken part is the ImageMagick toolkit on the server I'm using. That's the freeware image manipulation software that MT uses.
FWIW, that Beau Smith person who posted a comment at 11:17 yesterday also broke MT with a picture.