I broke my forum - can't post after deleting spam posts

[bittsen]

I may be stupid or something but I can't find out what I did to break my forum.
I had a spam attack and decided to delete all the posts rather than moderate them one at a time.

Somewhere in the process I managed to make it so nobody can post to the forum. Not even me as an administrator.

Is there a switch I clicked?

If I'm being honest, I find the entire UI as an administrator quite frustrating.

[Kindred]

How did you "delete all the posts"?

[bittsen]

How did you "delete all the posts"?

Administration Center »Forum Maintenance »Topics

And then I selected all boards

I think that's when they all went away.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

If you removed all topics, you'd have to start a new topic in order to post.  You didn't remove the boards, did you?

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Removing posts or topics shouldn't do anything to anyone's ability to open topics. And there shouldn't even be a way to stop an admin from doing anything they want.

[bittsen]

Here's the forum site.
I still see the topics that were there originally and I added one to see if it was a problem with the two topics I emptied.
The new topic has the same inability to post.

https://fernosrealitybbq.com/ [nofollow]

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

I see no topics there at all. 0 Posts in 0 Topics by 51287 Members.

And trying to start a new topic gives a HTTP ERROR 500. Check your server's error logs.

[bittsen]

Do you see this?



It's what I see.

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Yes, that's what I see. 3 boards, no topics. And entering a board and clicking "New topic" gives a HTTP ERROR 500.
You should check your server's error log for further info on that error message.

[bittsen]

Yes, that's what I see. 3 boards, no topics. And entering a board and clicking "New topic" gives a HTTP ERROR 500.
You should check your server's error log for further info on that error message.

OK, will do.

I'm not sure what I'm looking for but I'll give it a shhot.

[Doug Heffernan]

I'm not sure what I'm looking for but I'll give it a shhot.

You can post here any error(s) that are logged, and we will go from there.

Do you have a recent backup of the database btw?

[bittsen]

No recent backup of the database.
Still don't know what I'm looking for in logs. There are way too many possibilities in Cpanel.
I'm still getting regular emails saying my database couldn't connect and it always says contact the administrator in the Emails.

[Doug Heffernan]

Still don't know what I'm looking for in logs. There are way too many possibilities in Cpanel.

Do you mean that there are a lot of errors in the log or that you can not find the log at all? If the former, copy/paste here the most recent error messages. If the latter, ask your host.

I'm still getting regular emails saying my database couldn't connect and it always says contact the administrator in the Emails.

That error usually ocurrs either if the database info are not entered correctly in the Settings.php file, or the database user does not have full permission to the database. Or it is server related.

Does your forum load fine, or do you get the Smf Connection error?

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

I'm still getting regular emails saying my database couldn't connect and it always says contact the administrator in the Emails.

Most common cause for this is SMF simply losing connection to the database. If this is really a regular occurrence, yet your forum loads for you, there is definitely something wrong on the server itself.

[bittsen]

OK, it's been a while since I looked into this problem.
I still haven't found a way to fix this problem.

Is there an easy way to reinstall SMF to repair the database? When I look in Cpanel it shows the database isn't broken.

I can start from scratch if I have to but I would like to get this forum up in the next few days.

Thanks for any help.

[Kindred]

The problem is that your settings are in the database.  If you screwed up the settings, then restoring files while using the database will not change any settings

[bittsen]

The problem is that your settings are in the database.  If you screwed up the settings, then restoring files while using the database will not change any settings

OK, that sounds like it's beyond my knowledge base.
When you say the problem is in the database, and the settings are messed up, how do I access those? Through Cpanel or through SMF?

And what possible setting could it be?

I'm not above deleting the database in Cpanel and deleting SMF entirely and starting over from scratch.

No matter what path I take, I'm making sure there's anti-spam measures in place.

[Oldiesmann]

Without seeing the error message that's causing that "500" error it's hard to say exactly what the problem is. Login to cPanel, scroll down to the "Metrics" section and click on "Errors". That should give you the exact message, which we can use to help you fix whatever's broken.

[Kindred]

Sorry...   if we're talking a 500 error, then I was mistaken,  it's a file issue.   I got confused with your original problem

[bittsen]

This is all I get for errors in my email.

Ferno's Reality BBQ - All Things Television: SMF Database Error!



There has been a problem with the database!

This is a notice email to let you know that SMF could not connect to the database, contact your host if this continues.

And this is the error I get when I try to post in the forum

This page isn't working
fernosrealitybbq.com [nofollow] is currently unable to handle this request.
HTTP ERROR 500

I don't know what any of this stuff means.

I'd also like to delete all users in one swoop. All the users are spam accounts.