OK, I’m slowly getting things back to normal. I still have to fix the templates on my individual entry sheets, and there are some problems with style sheets, as you can see by the flaky typefaces. The biggest problem remains comments, which still aren’t working as advertised. I’ve got some questions up on the MT fora, but no useful response yet. I also have a problem with the software hanging when I publish a post (it just times out and gives me a 500). Fortunately, it seems to do what it’s supposed to do before that happens, but it’s a PITA. I’m hoping that some MT type can tell me how to run a debugger to figure out where and what the problem is. The real problem is that it also means that it times out when submitting a comment, so if anyone tries to do that, they’ll get frustrated, and perhaps end up doing it multiple times. So I’m going to have to disable them for now.

Still working problems and not much time for blogging, though I’m working on a SS2 piece for another venue, and I’ll probably be blogging the debate tonight at Pajamas, since it’s just around the corner from me, over at FAU.

I’m going to keep this post at the top for a while, as a warning that the site is still under construction. Don’t let any bytes fall on your head.

Not just me, you also. I may be attempting a software upgrade tonight or tomorrow, and I’ll have to shut down access to the site temporarily while I do it. So if you can’t get in, that will be why. It’s nothing personal. Not even for the trolls. I’ll be keeping this post at the top for a while, so until it happens, look below for new ones.

[Wednesday update]

OK, even though (or maybe I should say particularly because) no one can comment yet, I’m going to start blogging again. I just can’t get the monkey off my back. New posts will continue to appear below until the issue is resolved, or I give up on it and ban everyone permanently. And again, if there is an MT doctor in the house, please email me.

Let’s see if the comments work on this one…

Apparently, there is no clean path to get from the old version to the new version with the comments template intact. The new version of MT doesn’t allow pop-up comments–you have to go to the individual entry page. So I decided that I’d just start with a fresh set of templates that work in the new software, and gradually restore the look of the page. At least we’ll be functional. Now that I have a clean setup, the first thing I’ll do is get comments working properly again, then I’ll start reprettifying the site.

This is a test post…

[Update an hour or so later]

OK, I’m in MT 4.0, but having problems. Still no comments showing up, and I can see that they’ve changed their template comment tags again (no mention about this in the upgrade instructions), so I’m glad that I didn’t waste my time trying to fix it in 3.35. More seriously, the script is crashing when I publish with no helpful messages, though it does seem to publish, so I’m going to have to dig through the server logs. I’m not very comfortable moving forward until I understand/fix that problem. If there are any MT gurus out there, I’d appreciate an email.

[Late morning update]

OK, I’ve got a semi-serious problem. When it updated my data bases, it made me an administrator for the blog, for not for the MT installation itself (even though I was previously). Comments are disabled at the system level, and I don’t have permission to go in and change this. Does anyone know how to hack the installation on the server to change my MT permissions? I’m thinking that maybe if I go in and modify the database directly, but I’ll probably have to delve pretty deeply into the MT docs (or even look at the code) to figure out how to do this.

[Update early afternoon]

Well, I made myself a superuser again by poking around in the data base, and I updated the global permissions. Supposedly now, comments are allowed. But the template continues to refuse to display them. The MT documentation is decidedly unhelpful. I’ll have to try to find some working examples and see what I’m doing wrong. So comments will still be unavailable, for now. But I’m going to resume blogging, because there’s lots of news out there.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Well, at least I found a relevant manual page, with an example. Hopefully this will get comments on the way to wellville.

I’ve done an upgrade, but there are some issues, as you can see. There are no comments.

I don’t think that the comments have been lost, and my data bases are backed up, but I may have to tinker with templates to get things working again.

[Update a while later]

OK, I’ve got the templates to display the comment field, but it’s still not showing the comments. As I said, I’m sure I haven’t lost them, and I can reupload them if necessary, but I may not get them viewable until tomorrow. And I’m only halfway through the upgrade (it’s a two-step process to get from MT 2.66 to MT 4.0). You can comment if you want, but it won’t show up until I fix this problem, whatever it is.

[Update a minute later]

OK, I know the comments exist, because I can see them from my control panel for each post. I just have to figure out what type of incantations I have to perform to make them actually display on the blog.

[Morning update]

I’ve decided that, if I have to rework templates and debug anyway, I might as well go all the way to the 4.0 upgrade first, to spare myself potentially having to do it twice. Hopefully I’ll be through this fresh hell sometime today.

You probably figured this out from my last couple postings, but we’re safely back home. We overslept this morning, and almost missed our flight, but made it in the end. And TSA isn’t any better. But at least they have a sense of humor about it: “This week, lipstick is classified as a solid. We don’t know what it will be next week, but this week, it doesn’t have to go in the plastic bag.”

Busy packing, and heading off to St. Louis tonight, to visit a few more people, then an 8:15 AM flight from there in the morning. Probably no more posting until tomorrow afternoon, if then.

Just in case anyone wondered, I was traveling yesterday. We’re in Columbia Missouri, the Ann Arbor of…errrrr…Missouri, visiting Patricia’s relatives. Posting will not be non-existent, but perhaps light, due to ongoing work load and celebratory Christm…holiday activities. Hope you’re having a good one as well, so far.