Hi Lee

I have been having some issues with my  hosting provider, basically they have messed up.

It is likley that I will have to reinstall DNN from fresh.  However, because of the problems, I have not been able to create a template of the pages/modules and content of the site.

Is there a way around this where I can still start afresh and still move content over to new site? 

Thanks.

 

Lynn

Have you asked them(HOST) to reinstall your site from a system backup? If they can roll you back a week or so at least some of your work would be retained. Better than starting from scratch.

Good luck

Hello Lynn,

Rolling back is probably the only option you have.

You could see if you can backup your current SQL database for download, but even if you can download a copy of the DNN files and MS-SQL database, in their current state they will be corrupted, so you will just re-install the same corrupted version to a new site.

If you can't rollback, but you can get a backup copy of the database, I would try to install the database to a localhost installation (ie. within your own copy of MS-SQL server install the backup database to SQL Server) and then extract some of the data from the tables in SQL Server, you might for instance be able to copy and paste the html code from some of the Text / HTML modules into a fresh DNN installation.

The easiest method will be to roll back though, thanks,

Hello

Thanks for the reply.

I don't think rolling back will work because the site/permissions was setup wrong in the first place. They set the site up inside a child folder, the partent and child folder both pointed to the same IIS host header, causing duplicated URL's and other problems.

Major headache.

Regards

Lynn

Hi Lee

My hosting provider has not yet resolved the problem, I have had to resinstall and start from scratch.

I have found that on the new install the SMTP is still not working which is an indication that the permissions are still not correct. I don't want to go to the trouble of inserting all the data and find I am in the same position as before with 2 or more tabs using the same url and a heap of permission problems. Plus they are ignoring my support tickets and redirected the online chat support on me.

I am considering moving hosting providers, but I don't want to jump into another bad hosting position.

 I am UK based.

Your site seems to run ok, can you tell me the name of your hosting provider and would you recommend them? 

Thanks

Lynn

If you don't mind having a American Host I use Re-Invent.com. I have 3 sites set up on it and have no problems. They we're having a special with giving away 9 months of hosting for free and SQL 2005. Don't quote me on that I don't work for them. Just tell them if you sign up to place the 4.03 DNN install files into the directory and you'll run the setup. Once that's done then DL the release.config file make your adj and reload it back as web.config. Log onto your site and you should be set. Their EMAIL response time for problems both week and ends is great. Plus if you program in ASP.NET/ASP they have some nice free componets installed in the GAC. At lease give them a look b4 you comit to someone else.

Hello Lynn,

I also use American hosts as I have found they provide the best value for money. The only problem you may have is support. - Quite often I have to wait until the afternoon before a support question is answered even though they may state 24hours support.

I use a few different hosting providers. The 2 main ones I use with DotNetNuke are Reseller Choice and Server Intellect.

Both of them are experienced using and setting up DotNetNuke.

Reseller Choice has good support, tickets are always answered with helpful answers. Last month I was experiencing a lot of downtime though (one day was 19hours!) - but they have now swapped out the server and I haven't had any downtime since. - Only thing was it took them a few weeks to swap the server. - Reseller Choice are good for the beginner and you have full control in the admin panel to backup your database.

Server Intellect have better uptime but poorer support, some tickets may take days to answer. You also don't have the facility to backup your database from within the control panel. They are supposed to automatically set up the DNN permissions for you as well, but I have come across an occassion where the permissions were not correctly set.

Both of these hosts though expect you to be able to install DNN yourself, there are no automated installations. - Check out my installation to a hosting provider tutorial though and this will help you out.

Thanks,

Hi Lee

Thanks for the reply and useful information.  

I am far from an expert DNN'er so I might consider Reseller Choice, if  my (HOST)  fail to solve the problems and I have no choice but to move.

My (HOST) moved my site to a newer server, to try to solve the problem, it took approx 24 hours, it didn't solve the problem though.

To be honest I really don't want to go to the extreme of moving unless I have no choice, because my (HOST) is generally very helpful and the support is good, (except today) which I need.  It is a pity they are not too knowledgeable on DNN, but they claim to be. 

However, since my last post my (HOST) have been tripping over themselves to be extra helpful, the senior guy is trying to solve the problem now, so perhaps this time it might work.

Maybe they read this post too and guessed I was referring to  ***** them.  Perhaps they are afraid in case I mention their name and they may loose future custom. 

I have decided to be a little more patient and give them a few more day's to resolve these issues before I take the drastic step of moving. 

I will then create a post in your "hosting providers section " to inform the readers on the outcome, favourable or not so that they can decide for themselves, to host or not to host with this company.

Thanks again for your advice and information.

Regards

Lynn

Hello

Another episode in this post.

New DNN site installed, my (HOST) have solved the SMTP error, so as far as I can tell so far site is working fine. Because of the difficulty in creating a template, I have no data in the site.  Although I have since installed related modules.

The have access to the old database and can see all the data looking at me, crying out to be free. 

I tried moving and inserting 1 oldDB_table from the old database to the new site/database, which consequently, overwrote the existing newDB_table on the new database. As a result the related module in the new site did not acknowledge the inserted oldDB_table_data and because the oldDB_table is not linked to the new module, I was unable to create any new data in the inserted oldDB_table. 

There must be an easy way around this.  What can I do?

Thanks

 

Lynn

 

It won't be as simple as copying one table across, you will need to copy across all related tables as well.

For instance the module table will reference the page ID and module ID for that particular instance of the module that you inserted into the page. - Therefore all of your pages will need the same id numbers etc.

You will need to look into the table structure and see what is getting referenced and then try to restore your original structure from your old site. - This is not an easy task and it's likely to take some time.

The other option is to just create the site as you did previously, but just copy the data section from the module table, ie. for the Text/HTML module just copy the data of the text  from your database table directly into your Text/HTML module that you have added to your page.

I don't think there is an easy solution to this, it will be a long process where you will have to experiment to see which method will be quickest, easiest and reinstate as much of your old data as possible.

What I would suggest is that you backup as you go along incase you come across any further problems. - You could do this by creating a site template and export all of the data - this way you can install it direct to a localhost installation as a second backup.

You may want to test out transferring your data across from your old database on a localhost installation as you may find that you corrupt the fresh new DNN installation in your first attempts.

Good luck,

Hi Lee

Thanks for the advice. 

Your first option of referencing the id's and modules seems quite a long and labourous task.

I have quite a lot of items listed in the CATALook modules, in which links several modules are interlinked, this seems too complicated to even try.

 I have over 300 items listed in the WildPortFolio module alone.  It would take forever. 

BTW I want to take this opportunity to say how teriffic and extremely helpful Bruce, from WildPortFolio has been throughtout. I was getting errors with his modules.  Bruce discovered the double URL problem I (which was the source of the errors) was having and as a consequence my (HOST) has been forced to try to solve their error.

 Your second option of copying the data from the database sounds better but I am unable to copy/paste data in or out of my database as this feature is disabled.

I think I will retype it all, as I know I am likley to spend a very long time trying out the options/solutions above, and I don't have a guarantee that it will work.

Thanks

Regards

Lynn