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TedzWhere to start. I am not at all technical, I don't have a clue. He who mustn't be obeyed deals with all the technical site building stuff. Even to him, some of it he's learning as we go. He works in I.T for his day job, but not in site building so it's a bit of a learning curve for him too. We've had both the hosting and domain name for well over a year. I intended to start up way before now but various real life things have got in the way, house moves (from England to the Netherlands - nothing small scale here lol), health problems, the list is endless. But finally things have settled down enough for me to set a date. That date is officially tomorrow. Horray! I have my interview at the chamber of commerce. He who mustn't be obeyed has the time off work to come with me as my 'translator' (just in case). I've built up a supply of bears and am happy with my work. One little problem. Website.
Over the last couple of weeks we've encountered more and more back end problems on the site. I am totally useless when it comes to that. I can upload a picture or change a layout slightly, but I have absolutely no knowledge of html codes etc. So each time I've encountered an error, I've put it down to 'I must have done something wrong'. That is not the case (I'm even surprised myself here!). Our problem is that we're using Joomla 3 to power the site. Relatively user the friendly (the basics are, but I leave the rest to him to do, as I really don't have a clue). It now emerges that all the back end problems we've been getting (including being frozen out) are down to our hosting company. Once again, I don't understand anything about that, he who mustn't be obeyed deals with all of that for me. Upon filing help tickets with the host company, it emerges they do not have the latest version of PHP therefore we've just been told to ditch everything and install the older version of Joomla 
I'm starting to see red here a little! To explain a little more, Joomla 3 version has been out since March this year. We were using Joomla 2 but were prompted to upgrade because the old version is being supported less and less, therefore there will emerge various security issues (if not now, then very soon). Of course, we did that. We had no problems at all until the last few weeks. Admittedly, we weren't very active in getting the site up and running at that stage as we were moving house, and more recently he who mustn't be obeyed's mother has been very ill. We did do some work on the site though, and all went very smoothly. Only now we're really trying to get it up and running fully, it has come to a complete standstill. Nothing we do back end will save, just gives an error message each time. We can't access the main control panel for the site. Add-ons such as blog modules do not work. After spending almost 2 weeks trying to configure it, I got fed up, leaving he who mustn't be obeyed to sit and play on his own, and I went to a free blogging site with the intention of importing it if/when he got it working....which turns out is an impossibility.
So after support tickets flying back and forth between us and the hosting site, we've come to realise that their PHP version is not compatible with the version of Joomla that we're using, and despite them taking our site down for almost 2 weeks when they upgraded servers their end earlier in the year, they could have put us on one of the new servers which DOES support the latest PHP. I'm probably babbling here, because I don't have a clue what all this jargon is, only that it is not fit for purpose. So we are now looking to get our money back (which I think will not happen without a fight), and find a new host. The chances of getting the site and running before or even within a few days of my chamber of commerce appointment are about zero. I just want to cry! :cry:
If anyone has any advice on what to do, good hosting companies
Boechout, Antwerp
This is Chinese to me, Charlotte, but I am sure that there are many artists here that are way smarter than I. 
TedzThank you anyway Peterbear 
I don't understand it either! He who mustn't be obeyed has been doing all the technical stuff, it all just goes right over my little head! Even Joomla is a boggle to me. I've learnt the basics, and by that, I mean the real basics. I can upload pictures, and at a push publish a document (even that is taxing!), but I tell he who mustn't be obeyed what I want, and he does the technical coding. He has a day job though, so this has been like a hobby to him in a way. Initially, I wanted a website without adverts etc, so he insisted we had to buy hosting and domain names and just do it ourselves rather than use one of the many free sites out there (which are a lot more user friendly for me!). Even that sounds do-able, but in terms of cost, we could simply have used one of the site builders even. (not a DIY one as I call it, but one where all the templates are there for you. All the coding is done) Nothing is free (and I don't expect it to be), so everything has been paid for on top of hosting and domain names (shopping carts, gateways, site graphics software). So in effect we really should have just gone to a site builder, paid x amount (which initially seemed ridiculously high), but this has worked out to be the same, but not user friendly in any shape or form. So, now we have all the bought shopping carts, software etc but a host who says they cannot host it anymore. Well, they can host it but we have to revert back to a soon to be unsupported version of Joomla (which is one of the leading DIY site builders).
Our main software (Joomla is free) for building the actual site was upgraded nearly 6 months ago, but it's only now we're getting these errors and being locked out of the back end on the site. The hosting company is blaming Joomla, but we haven't had any problems whatsoever until the last few weeks so I'm convinced they're not at fault. It's something to do with the hosting company. My mind is well and truly blown at the moment
Past Time BearsCharlotte, does "he who mustn't be obeyed" have another name? Don't want to be nosy, but just thought it'd be easier to type. 
TedzYes, he does, his names Theo
Past Time BearsAh - Theo - that's nice. I asked our technical guru here at Teddy Talk to take a look at your problem. He's extremely busy right now with multiple projects, but told me to tell you "she does not need to upgrade to Joomla 3 and stay at Joomla 2.5.24 which has security fixes and only requires PHP 5.2.4." Hope that will help somewhat.
TedzAh thank you so much. We've literally just changed to a different host. The old host was plain rude, TELLING us to change OUR site back to a version we haven't used in almost 6 months (and worked fine until the last few weeks!) and that we should ask permission before upgrading our software - you know those vital security updates that render your site unsafe to users if you don't do them, and they blamed Joomla for it as well as our ignorance/lack of knowledge (which for me, is more than true, but Theo, although not a pro, does know what he's doing). It turned out, our site required a Linux server (all jargon to me), and that we were on a Windows server, as well as the PHP issue. Support tickets, and abuse (from them) flew back and forth, so we pulled the entire site of their server. Luckily Theo backed it up, so not much will be lost, but we still need to put in quite a bit of time to get it working again and find our way around the new hosting site controls. (something to keep Theo occupied!)
On the plus side, we've found a much more affordable host, so it's not all bad. Just a few days of technical stuff for Theo to fix 
I had my 'interview' at the local Dutch chamber of commerce too today, so I'm now all official and legal as it were. Not that I was illegal or anything before! 
I felt like I was going for a big job interview. I was a bag of nerves! The lady I saw there spoke very good English (despite the fact it should have been conducted in Dutch), and seemed to delight in exercising her linguistic skills (I didn't complain!), so it was all very relaxed. The paperwork was all in Dutch however, so I may have signed my life away without even knowing it. So we have a bit of a rush to get the new site up and running now. This all happened with the site at the worst possible timing, but it's coming together slowly! Thank you so much for your help though, I really appreciate it
