MendTheWeb
New Year Tidy-Up: Loose Ends
What follows is a message from Site Builder Support, explaining the website hosting issues have been addressed, and that our website is ... sort of ..... working...
However, ALL files and pictures we have uploaded ourselves over the years have BEEN LOST, and we will need to restore these ourselves. This may take some time...
We have done what we can to get a website back which at least is functional, so please bear with us...
As most editors are now aware, all uploaded files containing pictures and documents were lost when our previous host unexpectedly suspended the Site Builder account in late November. Moving to a new host has proved rather a bumpy ride, for which we apologise to editors who began restoring their sites early on. We believe that the system is now stable and hope to complete the few remaining corrections to the software shortly. But there remain problems which can be dealt with only by individual site editors.
When the files containing pictures and documents were lost, the original links to them in the database remained. Links to missing files cause confusion to site visitors, and use system resources to no benefit. The only remedy is to reload the files or remove the links. So:
If you kept local copies of files which were on the site in November, reload them in the usual way using the Add picture or Upload file option. If an uploaded file has exactly the same name as the original, the program will immediately make a match with the corresponding link, and will not ask you to re-enter its details.
If you cannot or don't intend to reload some files, remove the links to them. The main menu has two new options: Pictures/Remove links to missing pictures and Files/Remove links to missing files. Selecting one of those options will produce a list of the relevant links: tick the boxes beside any you wish to remove and submit the form.
If your site shows the standard 'Gallery' button, de-activate it temporarily (using the Change buttons option in the Admin menu) until there is once again a good corespondence between links and uploaded pictures!
Site Builder Support
January 8th 2023