Meta: Well, That Was a Relief 0

Every week, usually on Monday, I perform regular maintenance on the database for this blog. I log into my hosting provider, navigate to CPanel, and do a “check,” “repair,” and “optimize” on the SQL database. I then export the database tables and save a copy on my local computer what I’m typing on right now because there is no such thing as too many backups.

I started doing this back when I was self-hosting when I lost a good two months worth of my timeless drivel in a database crash.

Last week, the database did not want to export; the download choked at about 37 MBs (the current backup file is over 180 MBs). There were also some instances of oddness behind the scenes, but the public face of the site seemed okay.

I mucked about various tools over the course of the next couple of days trying to fix the problem while dreading the prospect of having to trouble-shoot the tables manually. Then, on Wednesday, the oddnesses disappeared. (I have no idea whether I had anything to do with that or not.)

Today, fearing that I might be forced into learning more about SQL than I ever want to know, I approached the weekly back up with some dread, but the damn thing worked flawlessly. I have a nice new back file on my local computer, I didn’t get any errors about “download failed,” and I can relax.

(Watch. With my luck, I’ll wake up tomorrow to a broken site . . . . but I’ve got a backup!)

Afterthought:

After I wrote this, I remembered that my router died late the next day. I suspect that its death throes caused the aborted downloads.