I closed the forum when the trouble began. I updated the Control Panel > General > HTML Includes header form and submitted then it stalled and after that I had lost all data in all the forms.. Header Insert For All Pages Header Insert When Not Displaying a Topic Default Header Default Footer
I can see above to the left.. You have not set a title for the community. > Control Panel > General .. Default Time Format tab the forms are empty Available Time Formats tab the form is empty HTML Includes tabs all forms are empty
Homepage Name is missing Homepage URL is missing Who's Online Settings > Robots (Crawlers) is missing Social/Sharing Settings > everyithing is missing in the forms Post Likes Settings > everyithing is missing in the forms New Post/Reply Page Settings > everyithing is missing in the forms Topic & Post Page Settings > everyithing is missing in the forms Default Topics Per Page > everyithing is missing in the forms
Top posters numbers are gone in the portal
config.inc.php seems to have lost about 500 bytes and it seem that config-bak.inc.php was updated the same second that I hit submit. perhaps the system created a config.inc.php backup there... hmm...
Please advise how I can address this issue!!! Thanks in advance
you probably refreshed during the saving of files. thats how this usually happens. the data is replaced with blank data. its extremely rare. but it does happen. backups are the tools that admins use. admins of every single software.
email address is simple to answer. if the field is "" (blank) then it uses the address from the admin user accessing the page. code for that is within the top of /admin/gen_display.php
if you're curious, open the script file and you'll see it near the top. its a fail-safe rick added for when you access the page for the very first time. this field is the return address for all forum emails. $config['SITE_EMAIL'] = (!$config['SITE_EMAIL']) ? $user['USER_REAL_EMAIL'] : $config['SITE_EMAIL'];
what mogan may have done probably was: close his browser during the submit screen. OR did a CTRL-F5 or forced F5 OR opened a new tab OR anything that would clear the <input> get/post browser data ...on the GENERAL DISPLAY submission screen in a the browser tab.
when this happens, nothing from the entry screen is passed through to it. essentially submitting "empty fields" and creating "HTML INCLUDES" files of zero-bytes. every tab on the General Display settings page is submitted and written at once. all of the tabs on that page.
config-bak.inc.php was automatically created prior to any update being done. this is the current backup of forum configuration. it gets replaced with the current settings just before new ones are written. if you make changes, the previous settings will overwrite that file.
you should have a backup plan for your entire site. especially your /includes files.
bonus commentary: my backup plan is to backup the settings and scripts every 24 hours. that file is about 5mb total. after that is done, anything older than 30 days is deleted from the directory. this is all done through the CRON tasks on my server. I also FTP in to my sites on a schedule, and mirror the important data to my local hard drives.
When I found out that the forum was affected I felt like disaster had hit me. When trying to understand the magnitude I posted this message here. Rubens answer didn't give me much but a tiny bit and that actually got me thinking more constructive. FYI I have never had to restore anything with the hosts WHM/CP and didn't really dare to hit the start button. Then I remembered the config-bak.inc.php and checked the time it was created. It was one second after I hit the button when it all happened. I also compared the files and then used the config-bak.inc.php as config.inc.php. Suddenly most things started to work and I dared to restote the header, footer and other affected files. All was within /includes.
I am very grateful for the config-bak.inc.php as it made my day. Thanks guys for building that feature.
After a few days it seem that it works ok.
We can't thank the west coast guys enough for your efforts!!!
Oh I'm a west coast guy too.. but on the Swedish coast and that's a complete different story. Thanks also to Ruben.
Thank you Driv. I see your linked posts from 2012 regarding the loss (zeroed-out) of the config.inc.php file, and present you with the following:
UBB.threads 7.6.1 Changelog (January 1, 2018) - [NEW] The current forum config file is now backed up before new changes are saved. A forum owner can now roll back to their backup config file, if the new one gets corrupted during its creation. https://www.ubbcentral.com/forums/u.../7-6-1-1-changelog-discussion#Post260743
config-bak.inc.php is mentioned in this thread's OP and a few other times in the replies. As a result of this new feature added in 2018, It appears that Morgan was able to make use of this auto-backed up configuration file for his main settings, in conjunction with a previous backup of his forum header/footers.
Thank you Driv. I see your linked posts from 2012 regarding the loss (zeroed-out) of the config.inc.php file, and present you with the following:
I am well aware of config-bak.inc.php. The way that you phrase your response (including date) appears to be patronising. That you don't consider it worthwhile.
I found that lock & write function to be lacking and later discovered that SD (a very experienced programmer) considered the same. I am simply pointing out that this issue is still happening!
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