Argh! Sick of self-hosting!

My site was running beautifully–then starting hiccuping AGAIN.  I tried modifications which would work for a day or two, then HICCUP.  So I’d remove them, only to find they still lingered, so I’d have to hunt down and remove the fragments from my files and database.  I have replaced core files and fresh-installed plugins again and again and again.

It took two weeks to discover that my php version wasn’t working properly.  But all I can find about fixing it sounds like technical jargon which I can’t make heads or tails out of.  It’s supposed to be 5.6, but keeps going to 5.2.  Or I change it to 5.4, but all the plugins see it as 5.2, and here come the error messages.  !!!!!!!!!

Visitors get error messages; Google has trouble indexing; I get stripped-HTML pages in the backend, or various error messages or white screens, and, in between, the pages come up.

Meanwhile, my stats are in the frickin’ toilet because people and Google have trouble getting the pages up.  That’s it!  I don’t have time for this!  Last week, I spent days dealing with my dad’s death and the aftermath, and nights trying to figure out why my site kept hiccuping.  This week, I’m spending hours upon hours trying to figure it out, when I have other things that desperately need attention.  I’m keeping up with housework, but that’s about it.  I start working in the morning, look up and see darkness through the window.

It took two weeks to figure out that maybe my hosting provider has to sort this out on their end.  I’d rather open a support ticket and cut and paste all the error messages, but they don’t do that anymore.  (Do this over the phone?  Seriously?)

Sitting in chat–I’d rather just send an e-mail and let them sort it out, not sit in chat with someone who doesn’t know anything.  Last time I did chat, somebody screwed up my directories, and somebody else had to sort it out because I couldn’t get it to work.

But even if I contact them, something else will probably turn up later.  These troubles started three months ago, after three years of mostly easy self-hosting.  And just when I solve one problem, another one crops up.

I’m going to see how my site looks if I go to WordPress.com.  It would mean some sucky sacrifices–no Google Analytics, no javascript (so no redirects or other neat things I could do on Blogger), no Project Wonderful, no blocking, and a terribly basic Statcounter–but it appears far easier than going back to Blogger.

And it looks like I can post links to Lulu for my own books, though I can’t use my site to handle actual selling of them/orders (which I don’t want to do anyway), or affiliate links.

I tried setting up again on Blogger, but there were too many issues with importing and making things look right.  And I can keep the 2016 theme, which I love, so the site would look mostly the same.  I still have time on my host to set up redirects so Google can re-index me, so I don’t lose traffic.

And just think of the $200 bill I won’t be getting in April!  😀