What did I do? I was working on securing my site and it appears that I secured my site in such a way that even WordPress did not know it was there. This is probably where a decent backup comes in handy. If only I had a back up.
All of a sudden my site started to forward to the installation page. I researched the problem for an hour and tried various fixes, but nothing took. Next I contacted my web host and asked for my site to be restored. The next problem arose when my web host informed me that they only had database backup and not file backup. Hmmm …. Problem. This is not my host’s problem. They are not responsible to back up my website before I do something stupid.
All is well now. This is what I did to fix my site. I backed up my theme and plugins folder. I logged in to my web host portal and uninstalled WordPress. I completed a fresh install, uploaded my plugins and theme folder and restored my database. Wham, bam, back in business. There was a slight problem with permalinks after the reinstall and restore, but I simply changed the settings and I am back in business.
Lesson learned, take the extra five minutes to back up the site before trying something.
