flwrhead

Hey, just bumping this up to mark it resolved and let you guys know what happened.

I hired someone to extract the data from the backup that I made because my hostess couldn’t do it – told me there wasn’t any data there. Then the WordPress she reinstalled for me (by using the one click install) wouldn’t allow me to write to it! I signed on with a new hosting company and rehired my friend to transfer all my data to my new host. Now my blog is working fine, I didn’t lose 365 posts and 2,300+ comments that my hostess told me were gone, and life is good!

Thanks for all the help in these forums. I know people get frustrated with you guys at times, but I for one appreciate all the support. I’ve learned two valable lessons from all this:

1. Upgrade your software.
2. Use a hosting company that is familiar with the software you are using and has a working knowledge of database restoration.

Thanks again!

-elizabeth

This is what my hostess sent to me:

From her to Dreamhost:
> Thank you so much for your help! I’ve been trying to get this user’s
> blog to work for the past week and I just can’t get it back up. She
> says that she made a backup of her old weblog via the instructions
> provided by Dreamhost, so if you’re unable to get it to work via the
> WordPress dashboard then feel free to clear everything out and do a manual install.
> Dreamhost support Brett already “dropped” all the old tables on her
> MySQL database. I truly appreciate this. Those WordPress hackers
> really did a number on her blog!

And Dreamhost’s reply:
“Well I got it working again by restoring the wp-blog-header.php file from the two week old backups. However the database for this blog doesn’t appear to have any info, just the default first two blog posts. So it isn’t really displaying any good info now. What you may want to do is restore the database backup that she made. Then you ought to be able to upgrade to the newest version after that. If you have any more problems then please let me know.”

I’ll download 7zip tonight and open the backup files and see what’s in there.

Thanks for your help, suprchunk!

No, but based on what I read here, and based on what Dreamhost told my hostess, all files had to be deleted in order for the fresh install to work. So that’s what they did.

Was I crazy to think that a backup would include backing up database files?

Thanks! As to the wordpress backup – that would include backing up database files, correct? I mean, otherwise, it’d be pretty pointless.

Ha! “wall of text” Sorry! I thought the more info, the better. :o)

Thanks, Susan!

I’ve never messed with my permissions, so they were set at whatever was the WordPress default. I had not upgraded WordPress in who knows how long, and my understanding is that this wouldn’t have happened to me if I had. Lesson learned.

My blog is still down. My hostess is talking to Dreamhost about deleting all my old files (I have a backup from three days before the hack hit) and doing a fresh install. I’m not sure that’s the best way to go about reclaiming my site, but it’s the only thing we could figure out to do, particularly as I’m not well-versed in WordPress or code and my hostess doesn’t provide support for WordPress.

I’m sure I’ll be back on the forums as soon as the fresh install is run, trying to figure out how to reload my 2.5 years of content. Sigh.

Oh man. Bob, I’ve been following your progress in hopes that you’d figure it out and maybe I’d be able to figure it out too!

Here’s a question for ya. Is this strictly a WordPress problem? My host tells me that my blog isn’t hacked, yet I can’t edit the wp-blog-header-php file from my ftp site, so I’m curious. I just double-checked and I have write permissions for everything EXCEPT the header file.

Thanks everyone. I’ve read all the threads listed, several times, and the problem is – I can’t access my dashboard at all, even with two new passwords, clearing out my cache and cookies from two different computers. I even had my husband try to log in from his work computer and he’s NEVER been to my blog’s dashboard so he was completely starting fresh, and he kept getting the login screen too.

I’m talking with my host, maybe she can delete the offending text from the header php file for me, since I can’t edit my files via ftp. I guess the hackers have removed my edit rights. As it looks now, I’ve probably lost 2.5 years of blogging. My blog doesn’t even generate revenue – they did this to me for nothing.

And – before someone yells at me for running an older version of WordPress – yes, it’s true, I was. I was of the opinion that if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it, and it was working fine until last Wednesday. So yeah, my bad, but I still didn’t deserve this – none of us did.

ktomasch – I’m having the same problems – can’t delete the files necessary to install the upgrade from my ftp.

I also can’t access the files gzip files from the upgrade without downloading a program. I’m at work and can’t download programs to this computer.

Anyone care to cut and paste the contents of the wp-includes/feed.php and wp-includes/version.php files here so I can maybe fix this?

artpatrol, you sound like you’re in the same boat as I am. I’m afraid I’ll make things worse by playing around with my files, yet I’ve done a little of that anyway. I’ve emailed my host. We’ll see what happens.

Can someone tell me how to locate my .htaccess file so that I can remove the contents? Not sure where that is, and don’t want to delete my site. Thanks!

Okie dokie!

BUT – can you possibly help me with using the random header generator plugin? I installed it some time ago, but when I try to designate which images I want to use, the drop down menu box is like – two characters wide, and I can’t select the images. Any idea what’s up with that? Should I delete the file and reload it? Any suggestions?

Hire a programmer? haha!

Okay, nevermind. I got the info from the backup file on my server. Thanks anway!

If I’d been smart about it, I’d have copied the entire text into word and then I could have pasted it into the file when I killed it, but hey, I’m not that smart today apparently.

If I download and replace the WP package, will it replace all my posts, pictures, etc.?

Sorry, I know this is probably a really stupid question, but I don’t know anything about computer programming.