Category: Site News

WordPress — undefined constant error

I try to follow cardinal rules of data management that were drilled into me since I got into computers at university by (#1) taking backups often and (#2) keeping stuff organized. Well, the first one caused my site to go down today because I didn’t really follow the second one.

I try to keep on top of things by doing a full site backup at least once a year, on top of doing periodic database and blog backups. When I finished the full backup today, it stored the tarball (a compressed .tar.gz archive) in my hosted account right next to two other huge ones from last year that I forgot to delete, and it put me over the storage limit. This had the effect of returning ERROR 500 when trying to reach my site. However, I could still get into cPanel from my host’s server address, and support advised me to check the error log and replace core WP files.

The error log was full of lines containing the following:

PHP Warning:  Use of undefined constant DATABASE_SERVER - assumed 'DATABASE_SERVER' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP)

Then I noticed that the file size of the wp-config.php file was 0 bytes.

So I downloaded the tarball from the backup I had made earlier and extracted wp-config.php. I replaced the one on the server, and everything seems to be working again.

The PHP warning above is not specific to my host or WordPress configuration, but I couldn’t immediately find a search result describing this exact problem. Then again, Google search really sucks these days, so maybe this post won’t help anybody in any case.

Here is a photo of a statue in a downtown Maha Sarakham canal that’s supposed to be the tail of a mythical river monster of ancient Thai legend, but is jokingly called “the asparagus” by everyone and has become a national symbol of corruption (the city supposedly paid over 100 million baht for it):

It has nothing to do with the server problem above; I’d just wanted to post the photo for a long time.

It’s Been Twenty Years and One Day…

…since I started this blog! In that first uninspiring post, I think I was referring to NTT cutting off my dual ISDN (64 + 64kbps !!) service or refusing my application for the then cutting-edge FTTH service to my rental home in Sumoto, Japan.

I can’t say it seems like only yesterday; it actually feels like a few lifetimes ago. The first few years, blogging was new and exciting! I actually had a blog before this one up at Blogger. If I recall correctly, back then it required making a Blogger account (was it even named that?) and a separate Blogspot account and performing some kind of manual registration/installation. I helped set up a lot of friends on Blogger and hosted them on my domain (back when that was possible).

This blog started out on Movable Type, which was the platform of choice for tech nerds and was liberally licensed, but went down an errant path to (partially) open source, was sold on several times like an old workhorse, and eventually evaporated into corporate CMS root extract more than a decade ago. Likewise, this blog has of course seen better times.

Over the years, I’ve posted less and less. I still have no intention of quitting, though. I’ve been a full time lecturer for the past 17 years and we raised a couple kids during that time (I wrote that in past tense since they are mostly grown the hell up now), but the blog has never been down for more than a day or two at a time, even though there have been times it wasn’t updated for a whole month. That was accomplished across multiple webhosts, as well, so there is some regular effort put into it. I enjoy the maintenance and the tech side of keeping up with it all.

Here’s to another [INSERT NUMBER] years!

Thai Japanese English Lorem Ipsum WordPress Testing

１か月あまり名古屋に居たことがある。 そこで私たちを待っている幸福が、私たちが望むような幸福ではないかもしれない。 いろいろな意味で、正直が最善の策であることは言うまでもない。 すぐに戻ります。 イメージはマスコミの情報に形成される。 ＡＢＣ社のガードナー氏は、２月２０日から２７日までマリオットホテルに滞在中で、ぜひあなたに会いたいとのことです。 ああ、怖かった。 「怒ると彼はトラになる」というのは隠喩の例である。 いや、大丈夫だ。 いいからさっき盗ったモノを、カバンの中から出しなさい。

รีทัชฮิรุมบ้าออร์แกนิคสไตรค์ สเกตช์พุทโธคาปูชิโนชัวร์ ตนเองเธคดีไซน์ทาวน์เฮาส์ เห่ยอิออนโอเปอเรเตอร์ หม่านโถวเพลย์บอยล็อบบี้ ห่วยคอนเทนเนอร์คาแรคเตอร์วอลล์ บูติกรามาธิบดีอัลมอนด์รีสอร์ตช็อป เปราะบางตัวตน ฮิปโปโค้ชเมเปิล เลดี้ปฏิสัมพันธ์กาญจนาภิเษกสลัมแจ๊กพอต แทงกั๊ก อีโรติก สเปก ไกด์เหมย ป่าไม้โหลยโท่ย ไทยแลนด์สามช่ารีโมทกราวนด์

Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..”, comes from a line in section 1.10.32.

New Host Test Post

We were down for approximately a day because I was coordinating the change while on a trip to Laos last week.

A pox upon whoever bought JaguarPC and ruined a once-great webhost. My new host is much, much better, and I’m paying less than a quarter what I was to JaguarPC. I was with them for over twelve years – the last few years, their service got worse and worse and finally, they tried to double their fees on my yearly invoice, so fuck them. Want an honest webhost review for Jaguar PC? They are dishonest. They are slow. They suck. Great, hope that helps someone makes a decision.

Here’s a test photo of a mosquito eating apple slices:

Click to see the entire Mosquitoes Eating Fruit Series.

We are Cosmic Buddha

Aadab arz hai.

They are not us, yo :

Cosmic Buddha has never charged for music, mostly because we know we suck (although that obviously does not stop others). We have not released music for many years, but we have the Real Media files, several mixtapes, and Y2K coding errors to prove we were first. Our band predates our blog on this domain by 10 years or so, and it’s been going since 2003.

Also, here’s some album art and gig posters from back in the day:

The DRAGON year.
Funk you, dude!
Apologies to Rollins Band…
Third mixtape/ First live gig art
Second mixtape art
First mixtape art
First unregistered music company

Seongbulhaseyo.

UPDATE: Really?

Will blogging get a second chance?

Maybe after FB withers and joins Hi5 and MySpace in the Afternet, blogging will come back big… I really don’t care that much, but it would be kind of cool to see people writing more and emoji-ing less 😉

Also, WordPress completely prevented my posting capabilities today until I installed their new editor plugin called Gutenberg, which really reminds me of early HTML editing software (PageMill? GoLive? Claris?). I mean, I thought we ditched block editors for simpler editing tools… Or are there only nerds and techies still blogging?