When a Plugin Mysteriously Stops Working
… it may no longer exist
Many years ago, a client in the travel industry had a problem with the little weather app on their website. It just stopped working. The weather app was a WordPress plugin tied to Google Weather. Google had discontinued their weather web service, so the app stopped working.
… or it may have changed
In another situation, I installed the WP Store Locator on a site. The plugin has been working fine on two original sites, but it is unable to generate maps on the new install. Today, I found out that there is a problem with another new install. It was strange that there would be a problem on some sites and not on others. So, I wrote a question in the plugin forum on WordPress.org. It turns out that the plugin writer had already written a page about the problem.
Apparently, Google switched the management of their map API function into a new system that requires all API users to have both API keys and a Google billing account. Even though their pricing currently gives small websites free use of the Google Map API, they still require billing information to be on record.
… or you receive a 30 day notice
In separate circumstances, I have had a student and a client receive a 30-day notice that their website hosting company was closing their doors. In both cases, the websites were on a service where they could not just download a copy to upload to another host. They had 30 days to redesign and build a website.
How to Prepare for the Loss of your Web Hosting Company
- Make sure that ALL images on your website have names that tell what the image is.
- Make sure that ALL images on your website are organized into folders on your own system where you can get to them easily.
- Have an inventory of ALL the pages on your website.