Thread

A client’s site is suddenly all messed up; some stuff shows up, but some doesn’t. The about & contact links in the blue nav bar give you a blank page. The parent’s corner, a blog section, does show content. It makes no sense. Have we been hacked?

http://bit.ly/fV46Y6

The admin panel works, sorta, but has no styling; as if the style sheets were gone.

It is hosted at media temple. the client called them and they say that the problem is with our software. i have not touched this site in the past week, and it was working fine when i last did. without asking you to spend too much time, what is your impression of the problem? I suspect that MT must have changed something on their side. but what do I know?

Any wisdom you can offer would be most helpful.
Thanks!

One of the first things I would check is whether any of your custom field short names were changed. It looks like there are a few that aren’t getting parsed (places where you see “{my_custom_field_name}” in the rendered page). 

If that’s not it then maybe the add-on that is supposed to handle those fields is disabled or not configured correctly.

My initial thoughts are that

a] the config file got modified somehow? Make sure the server path for your “themes” directory is correct in your config file. That should fix the CP styling

b] Judging by what’s on the surface, it looks like your “snippets” aren’t reading - is that correct? I’m not sure how that could have happened if it was working previously. What was done to the CP over the last week? I don’t think this would just happen out of nowhere - perhaps someone isn’t telling you everything?

c] Although all the page templates look to be rendering correctly, perhaps double-check your paths for each one.

Without being able to see the CP directly, it’s hard to say exactly what is happening. I hope the above helps somewhat.

Cheers -

The admin panel works, sorta, but has no styling; as if the style sheets were gone.

Sorry, overlooked that bit.  That points to something different, then.  I see this is in the Tech support forum now (thought it was community at first) so I’m sure you’ll get some expert help.

My best guess: check all your system paths.

Ok, making some progress here. Apparently, when my client first saw the problem, the site was down completely. He called Media Temple, and they found the database password was wrong, so they changed it, and then the site started to display but with problems. They also had to make a change to the base path in the config.php file.

I made the same change that they did to a setting in my fieldtypes path, and that allowed the matrix field on my homepage to start working again.

I made the same path change in my sys admin > general configuration and that fixed the problem with the control panel not displaying.

But, I still have pages that won’t show up (click about or contact from main nav). I am using .htaccess to remove index.php, but those sections are listed there among the template groups. Normally I would expect the link to break if my .htaccess were not set up right for a given template group, but that seems to not be the problem.

Are there any other places where I need to look for faulty paths, since that seems to be the main problem?

Also, can anyone tell me how in the world the base path could have changed? If the site was working before, then the base path was right, and so can I assume that the bath path changed due to changes that Media Temple made? I am just looking for an explanation of how these things happen!

Thanks to all your help,
Rory

But, I still have pages that won’t show up (click about or contact from main nav). I am using .htaccess to remove index.php, but those sections are listed there among the template groups. Normally I would expect the link to break if my .htaccess were not set up right for a given template group, but that seems to not be the problem.

Are there any other places where I need to look for faulty paths, since that seems to be the main problem?

Are you saving templates as files?

If so, check the path to your saved templates folder.  That could be the culprit.

That was it! It was the path to the templates folder. But, how in the world could some of the templates be working and other not if the path was wrong? It makes no sense.

That was it! It was the path to the templates folder. But, how in the world could some of the templates be working and other not if the path was wrong? It makes no sense.

If the path to the saved templates is incorrect EE will use the version that exists in the database. 

Depending on how often you update that as you are working, the version in the database may or may not be in sync with what’s in your files. In EE2 there is the handy “Synchronize Templates” feature, but in EE1 you have to do it manually (by opening the template in the CP and clicking “update” every so often) or use DC Template Manager.

Thanks for the assist, Alex.

Rory, is everything else working again?

Yes, the site is working just fine again, but I’d be very interested to hear someone’s take on how a server path could change? If the server path changes, does that mean that the host did something on their side that broke the site? Shouldn’t they notify clients in that event? Is there any explanation for this? My client would like to know how this can happen. THanks!

It certainly sounds like the host did something, especially if you are on a shared server.

I have never - in 16 years - had something stop working without a human being (usually me!) making a change of sorts.

Hi roryrabbitfield,

As handyman says, this certainly does sound as if a host change was made. Has the server just been upgraded/migrated to a new control panel by any chance? Have you asked them exactly they did and why?

Cheers

Greg