So, I’m a complete idiot when it comes to everything about the backend of our site. That said, I’m the one responsible for paying for all the fees and I failed due to an expired credit card meaning our hosting was cancelled…
Is there any chance the forum data would still be around if I started a new site or managed to somehow get the old one going? There was a good amount of use there and it has been around since 2016 and I don’t think I could get my readers to start over, so I’m at least hoping the forums can at least be put back to where they were.
Thanks in advance for any help or answers you can give me.
Like I said, i’m an idiot when it comes to this stuff. I kind of inherited it and never took the time to learn what it all meant. I just paid the bills when they came due (until I didn’t, hence this situation).
So, let me describe what I have (although I may describe it so it doesn’t make sense because I’m just floating here…):
domain name is through namecheap
Hosting was through HostGator (this is who I failed to update my payment info)
I have a droplet on DigitalOcean (this is where I get really confused because I don’t know how this all works together?)
The blog was a wordpress blog (again, not sure if relevant or how this ties into the other stuff)
I had a separate domain (right word?) on HostGator for discourse (so, my main blog was XXXXX.com, and the forums were discourse.XXXXX.com). Again, not sure if that matters.
Anyway, I’m sure I’m making it more confusing but if you can get any info out of this I’m happy for any help or answers. Thanks!
Whether your data/database still exists is down to the retention policy of digitalocean or hostgator, whichever one was running the actual discourse docker container. (I presume digitalocean; hostgator looks more like the blog/website running wordpress).
If you miss a payment they typically just turn your machine off and you get a few months to catch up. If it’s past that retention period they have the right to nuke it, and if you don’t have a downloaded backup, you’re sol.
Have you figured out which of those three things (Hostgator domain, Hostgator WP, DO Discourse) were canceled exactly? If only your domain was canceled the forum and website will be still up and running, but inaccessible.
Sorry I’m not clear on the definitions of each of those…this is what was cancelled:
The 3 sites were the main blog, the discourse forum, and the third was unused (one of the original site owners used it for something, but it has been unused for several years).
Ok so all those eggs are in a single basket, I think the best / only thing you can do is reach out to this supplier and ask them if they’re able to restore anything.
So it seems like perhaps you’re conflating domain registration with the site hosting. If you’re up to date on the Digital Ocean account then your site is likely still there and running, but you can’t see it because the DNS doesn’t point there.
That doesn’t make much sense, but he also says that he has stuff at Digital Ocean, so on possibility is that somehow that is just for domains? And since they aren’t listed we can tell anything. If it is domains and they expired 9/16 then I think he can probably still get them back. There is some chance he could just pay to renew them and everything would start working again. (Just how that is the amount for domains I am unable to explain.)
So, I did figure out how to get my site back…I renewed my order at HostGator and while all my data was lost, I was able to upload a backup from september so the site is mostly back up and running.
Discourse, on the other hand, is still not working. I do think you’re correct that Discourse is installed on the droplet, but I do not know how to get my new…whatever I got from HostGator…to point to the old droplet.
That said, I’m working on it and starting to feel a little smarter.
Thanks again, and if anyone feels compelled to tell me how to connect my old droplet to a new site, I’d be all ears.
