Huge problem!

[icecold]

I was doing routine work, uploading an image using CPanel, in my live shop. the moment I finished uploading I tested the image, and what I got was a blank page! I went to the /cache/ to see if there were any errors and couldn't find any, then I realized all my /includes directory was GONE!, nothing was there, I am sure I didn't delete it by mistake, so I tried with a few backups I had and nothing, still a blank page! What's weird is when I restored one of those include directories, my admin login started to work ... I am able to login to the administration but not to the store! This is a live store as I said so it's imperative that I solve this ASAP.

[fairestcape]

Your host may have a backup.

We use a host that backs up everything every 6 hours...

[icecold]

Apparently I moved the whole directory to images, but still no luck I moved it back to where it belongs, and still the same Blank page, and a 500 Internal Server Error in Chrome, the other browsers only shows the Blank page ...

[RescoCCC]

First, one should never use file manager in cPanel for anything other than setting permssions that can't be set using an FTP program.

Second, it's likely that the problems you're now encountering after restoring the files and directories are a permissions issue. Go through and check the permissions. Folders should be 755 and files should be 644. Except the configure.php files, which should be 444.

[icecold]

I had problems with FTP programs, Filezilla for instance it refuses to connect, it's not a firewall problem ... it times out, the other one I use is dreamweaver cs4's FTP ... and only use the upload from File manager because it's convenient ...

As far as the permissions I checked them all and there is still some other problem because my page is still blank ... now what can I do upgrade the whole thing, reinstall ... my moved /includes didn't worked as expected ...

[DrByte]

Since you keep (on your own computer) a backup copy of all your PHP files from all your directories, including /includes/ etc, all you need to do is upload that good clean copy back to your server.

If you don't have such a backup, then ... well ... you still need to put back the files where they belong. Perhaps your first attempt didn't actually move everything properly.

If you don't have a backup, then ... this is your final warning to start making regular backups.
A backup would make this next suggestion a LOT easier:
This is the first thing I do when troubleshooting something that's gone awry and isn't clearly fixable using normal basic wisdom: http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.p...Obscure_Issues
If you don't have a good backup, then going through this process with a clean set of original Zen Cart files (you can get the zip from the link on the zen-cart.com home page), is an ideal starting point. It should at least help you quickly find out which files still haven't been relocated back to where they belong.

[schoolboy]

Many of us have "been there", icecold... and it takes an experience like this to alert you to the need for a proper management system.

In a nutshell, this is our system.

1. We manually install ZC on a good host server, following all the proper procedures for a manual install.

2. We configure and apply a CUSTOM template, making sure to create appropriate over-ride folders in all sections where these are used.

3. We get all FUNCTIONAL elements of the site in place, including shipping, payment modules, and various required add-ons.

4. As soon as this "initial" installation is complete, we FTP the entire site to our local machines (in our case a server on an office network). We now have a full backup of the files on a local machine.

5. We then backup the database, and archive that too.

(At this point, we have a site that has no products and no customers and no orders - but is is ready to start "work").

6. When a file needs editing, we edit the LOCAL COPY (ie: the file on our internal server). If we need to create a new over-ride file, we do this LOCALLY first.

7. When a file has been edited on the LOCAL machine, we open up WS-FTP-Pro, and link to the relevant remote server.

8. We then navigagte to the relevant directory and file on the remote server, and (in the case of files) RE-NAME the remote file to one with a .BAK file extension.

9. Then we FTP it's newer version FROM our local machine, TO the remote server.

In this way, we are ALWAYS sure that the LOCAL FILE is the most current. We also safeguard the older file (on the remote server) by giving it a BAK extension, so if our newly edited version is faulty, we just delete it from the remote server, and change the BAK to its original name, while we try again with the file on our local drive.

We NEVER edit directly off the remote server. (Staff face dismissal if they do this! )

For database management, we have a host that does full backups every 6 hours, but we ALSO create backups both BEFORE we run any SQL installs, and then again AFTER we have successfully applied a SQL patch.

In this way, recovery is very quick and easy. When we have had a major "disaster", we have been able to recover everything in a few minutes.

[icecold]

Thanks for all the suggestions, I think there has to be something I am missing, I while ago I started to port my old live site from 1.3.8a to 1.3.9h ... and I did exactly as suggested ... that is I backed up a copy of the live site minus images and cache ... and started comparing files with Winmerge, somehow Winmerge didn't recognized the differences between 2 files, in fact it happened to many, so I had to manually recheck them, the problem is this is so time consuming, I couldn't finish, so I left the project for another time, now this happens, maybe because I too tired, suddenly a stupid change, totally took my store down ... because I was busy with too many things at once, and an unresponsive Firefox, maybe I moved /includes by accident, can't remember ... well the thing is when I moved it back and check all permissions it still didn't work so my last attempt was to create a demo directory, upload my comparison copy that was working, and then moved the missing directories that is cache and images, all the others were there, I am always careful but too tired lately, so may be I am missing something because I changed both configures to match the new directory demo, but still get a blank screen with nothing on it, as I have a semi-working store, in fact 2 semi-working stores in another directories, don't know maybe I\ll just move the templates and start adding fresh add ons to it, and upgrading the database with the latest info, as I have it in a separate db, so the live one is intact, I was testing new templates and things there, plus I had another testing site on a local wamp server, but I hope I can just compare both databases(13.8a and 1.3.9h) to see if I can upgrade all the live content to the new store ... BTW what really bothers me is the fact to not be able to see ANY error messages! Just a blank screen ... And it also happened with my Demo testing site ... ?!?!? The only difference is it's an older copy so it doesn't have all the add ons, but other than that is using the same live database, as the live site is out and in maintenance mode ... so I am just pointing the demo site to the database, can't understand why there are still conflicts ... because in the demo site I am also getting a blank screen ... I have a technical background so I always do things following logic and common sense ...

[icecold]

Getting some progress, after I installed the debugger I was able to see some hidden errors! hurrah! Then I was able to find about some weird things, missing files, for instance, the whole common directory was missing from template_default! hmmm I am starting to think I was the victim of a hacking ... but why?

Anyways I am seeing some progress here! I n demo I was able to get a few warnings, not just in the cache, but in the site saying the site is down for maintenance and another one I really didn't understand: "Your database appears to need patching to a higher level. See Tools->Server Information to review patch levels." I understand it needs a patch but how? I thought there will be some command to patch it, or at least what needed to be patched ...

[icecold]

Fixed! But according to my host the index.php file had an error ...


So maybe someone hacked the site after all ....