Server Migration Got Derailed

Monday, October 21, 2024

Written by Kodi Wolf at 9:07 AM

So, my plans took a serious detour.

My wife ended up in the ICU with sepsis. She had a 3mm kidney stone get stuck in her ureter, which caused bacteria to build up in her kidney and she went septic.

After calling 911 and spending the day in the ER, they finally diagnosed her and recommended emergency surgery to put in a stent. Still not sure why they didn't just take the stone, but we're guessing it was because she was so sick and they didn't want to tax her body any further. After the surgery, the doctor told us to "pray for her," so yeah, it was bad.

She spent several days in the ICU because she needed to be on a ventilator and pumped full of antibiotics, but then they moved her to a regular room to start working on physical therapy.

But of course the insurance denied in-patient PT, so with the doctor's approval, we took her home and the insurance seems to have approved in-home PT, which has actually worked out way better.

She's finished a course of cipro and though the urologist originally had her scheduled for lithotripsy to blast the stone, there are some issues we need to clear up before she does that.

The aftercare for the lithotripsy involves inversion therapy for half an hour twice a day at a 30-45 degree angle to flush the kidneys.

But we know from past experience that will cause her to have ocular aneurysms after only a couple minutes due to her glaucoma, and her ophthalmologist is adamant that she not do that. So we have a consultation appointment scheduled for late November to figure out the best course of action going forward.

She seems to be out of the woods now and is back home and improving on a daily basis, but we're still in the middle of it and she's got quite a bit of recovery to get through.

At first, she was using a walker and other home health aids to do basic tasks, but thankfully, with the PT, she's been getting stronger every day. And one of my sisters was able to come stay with us to help, since I can't drive and my fibro and other issues make physically helping my wife very difficult.

I also just got diagnosed with frozen shoulder the day before this all kicked off and got a cortisone shot, but then had an allergic reaction to it with a massive fever in my arm, so yeah, good times.

But she is doing so much better and everyone's been saying they expect her to make a full recovery.

Anyway, this was on top of HostGator dicking me around again after spending $1,200 on the new server (though granted, that's for 2 years of hosting), so I've been trying to migrate my websites myself.

They gave me a free month, so I have until 10/23 before the old server expires, but I haven't gotten the new software installed on the new server (for obvious reasons) and I only just yesterday got the nameservers updated to point to the new server because it's taken me that long to get the new site finished.

And I still haven't gotten the SSL certificate installed, so my site appears to be 'unsecure,' which means I need to get that taken care of before I can even attempt to install the new membership software.

But without the membership software, you won't be able to log in, I won't be able to send emails to you guys through the software, and my stories won't be protected, which is why I've removed the paid chapters and ebooks from the site for the time being.

To be honest, it's all just too much right now.

So I'm going to focus on my wife and her recovery and I'll figure the site out later.

I do have everyone's membership information, so I should be able to eventually get everything set up again and email you what you need to know to login, etc., but it could be months. If you need the files that come with your membership, let me know, and I'll email them to you.

Take care and I hope everyone's doing well.

Moving to a New Server

Friday, September 13, 2024

Written by Kodi Wolf at 10:07 AM

So, I need to move my site to a new server again in order to keep costs down. That means the site might be out of order over the next few days while I get that sorted out. I'm hoping everything will go well, but with the way my luck has been going, I'm not holding my breath.

And yes, my life blew up on multiple fronts again, so I'm still stressed as all fuck. I've still been writing, but nothing I can post.

Anyway, if everything goes well with the site migration, you shouldn't really notice anything. If it doesn't or if it breaks the membership software, the site will probably be fucked for awhile until I can buy the new software, get it installed, and everyone's memberships transferred over.

If that happens, just email me and I'll send you copies of whichever stories are part of your membership.

Wish me luck. :)

New ABP Chapter

Thursday, May 30, 2024

Written by Kodi Wolf at 5:19 AM

I've added Day 28 to A Bondage Primer. It's almost 14,000 words long.

I still haven't created the EPUB books (just don't have the energy yet) and I don't plan to post Book 5 until all the chapters are posted for it (currently Days 28-32, but I'm going by word count, so it could be more or less once those chapters are finalized).

I'm super stressed with life stuff and my anxiety is through the fuckin' roof right now, but I'm still actively writing, so I'm hoping to get at least one more update posted before the end of the year (assuming nothing else in my life blows up).

I'm not sure whether it'll be for ABP again or POW. I've got an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 words left to write for Day 29 of ABP and about 1,500 for Ch. 6 of POW, but they're both for sex scenes, which take me longer to write, and I'm also working on a bunch of other stuff that isn't even close to being done, so who knows. It just depends on where my muse takes me and what I get finished first.

All right, I'm already freaking out about posting Day 28 because of course I found a fucking typo while converting the chapter to HTML and I'm worried that no one's going to be able to log in to go read the new chapter because the site's still buggy, so I'm just going to do it and hope for the best.

Take care, everyone.

New Site Design and Some Changes

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Written by Kodi Wolf at 7:07 PM

Happy Leap Day!

It's also the 24th anniversary of when I launched my site way back in 2000. I have now had this website for half my life (I turned 48 on February 11).

So, I guess it's fitting that I'm previewing the site's new mobile-friendly design today.

I've finally transferred just about everything to the new site design as well as created most of the new stuff (info pages, etc.).

If you're on the old site (W.O.L.F. Sector - Worlds of Lesbian Fiction) and would like to check it out, go to https://www.kodiwolf.com/fiction/. But I'm also posting this to the new site, so if you're reading it at kodiwolf.com/fiction/news/, then congratulations, you're already here. :)

All the chapters that were available on the old site are now on the new site and are protected by my old membership software, so logging in on either site will work for both.

Logging in is still buggy in that it will redirect you to a page that says it's not working, but if you go back, you'll be logged in and able to access the content available for whatever membership you have.

I've also noticed it can 'time out,' so if you don't log out, it can end up changing back to showing the 'Login' link, but you'll still be logged in and able to access protected areas. But if you log in again, it will go back to saying 'Hi, username,' and you can logout properly after that. (I have no idea if it was doing that before, but I just noticed it while working on the new pages.)

I'm still working on updating the login page (it's buried in the software code and exceedingly complicated, but I'll figure it out eventually), so the form still looks like it's on the old site. It also redirects to the old site upon logging out, but I think I know how to fix that. I just haven't done it yet, since I wanted to warn you guys about the changes before implementing them, so it's not a scary surprise.

The same goes for the Site Membership and Story Membership signup pages. I thought I made notes about where that stuff was in the software, but apparently I didn't (or if I did, I just can't find them now).

One of the other changes I've made is extending the free chapters for some of my stories.

A Bondage Primer now goes through Day 20 instead of Day 14. I've also broken it up into separate books to make it clearer that it's not just a single excessively long novel.

I've posted the first 8 chapters of the revised version of Lights of Life, since it will eventually replace the original version and I want to be upfront with potential new readers about those changes. (Note: Those chapters have not caught up to what's currently posted, so I can't recommend where to jump in on the old version to continue the story, sorry.)

Prisoner of War now offers the first 2 chapters for free instead of only 1.

And I've posted the first 10 chapters of the revised version of The Vampire Hunter, since just like Lights, it will eventually replace the original version. (Note: Those chapters are not a 1-to-1 replacement for the original chapters. To continue the story once you've finished the revised chapters, go to Chapter 3 of the original version. Some of the new characters I introduced in the revised version will be missing and some stuff is going to repeat because I moved later scenes to appear earlier, but hopefully it won't be too jarring.)

I'm still working on the ebook (epub) files (and debating on whether to continue to offer the pdf and mobi formats or not, let me know if you have a preference), since I need to update the links to point to the new URLs. I will also be offering ebook excerpt downloads of the free chapters. But the Extras pages (where that stuff is offered for each of the stories) are still under construction while I slowly work my way through compiling all those files.

Beyond that, I think I'm just about ready to make the new site 'live' and have it replace the old one, though I'll be leaving the old one up and intact for the time being.

Let me know what you think of the changes and if you have any suggestions for improvements.

Oh, and though I've tested this on my Kindle 7, 8, and 10, and my android smart phone (all old models from at least a few years ago), I don't browse the web on any of those devices, meaning I'm not a 'power user' when it comes to mobile. If my design has something that's generally irritating to the usual mobile user, please let me know.

Or if you have any questions or problems with the site, I'll do my best to help.

Happy reading. :)

Writing Stats For 2023

Monday, January 1, 2024

Written by Kodi Wolf at 12:00 AM

Here are my stats for 2023.

Compared to last year, my total decreased by almost 77,000 words, which kind of sucked, but my total time spent writing also decreased by about 94 hours (at around 500 words per hour, that accounts for about 47,000 words not written). I also spent a lot of time revising, which doesn't net me a lot of words and is why my average words per hour also dropped by almost 60 words (that accounts for another 25,000 less words written).

However, I did end up posting 194,000 words (to private Google docs, but it still counts), so all that time spent in revisions was obviously time well spent, since it allowed me to finish quite a lot of work.

My goals for 2023 were the same as always.

• Maintain a daily average of at least 500 words. (Done - see above)

• Write every day to keep my streak going. (Done - 2,915 days, including today)

• Post new story chapters. (Done - posted over 194,000 words on multiple stories, though it wasn't directly to the site)

I also continued my mini-goal of not falling below 100 words for any of my lowest days.

So, after seemingly finding a groove in 2022, despite all the stress, what happened?

Well, 2023 just ended up being stressful on a whole other level. It was just one thing after another, culminating in my site crashing in September, which completely sidetracked me into working on the website redesign.

And now with the current website still being a little wonky and trying to get the redesign done, I'm still struggling to find the energy to write as much as I'd like to.

Part of it is that I think I overdid it with working on the redesign. I was trying to get it done as quickly as possible, so that's pretty much all I did from the end of September to the end of November from sunup to sundown, and then I just burned out.

Which was kind of demoralizing, but with the current site mostly working (meaning it's not an emergency), I'm trying to listen to my body and my family, and have put the new site on hiatus until I can find the mental fortitude to get back to the coding.

Even with all that chaos and stress, I've still been writing every day (even if it was only a few paragraphs), and I did post nearly 200,000 words, so I'm trying really hard not to beat myself up about not writing as many new words as I did last year.

Here's hoping things will calm down at some point and I can get back to just writing (and posting).

The Sites Have Been Migrated

Saturday, September 30, 2023

Written by Kodi Wolf at 10:00 PM

My sites have been successfully migrated to the new server with no major hiccups (just a few small ones, like losing FTP, but I'll deal).

Everything seems to be working, for the most part. Due to most of my links being http instead of https, some things refuse to load, like my stylesheets for my signup pages, so the text is black on a black background (unless you highlight it by selecting it, it's basically invisible).

On the bright side, my membership software seems to be working well enough. It's still protecting my member pages, but it's refusing to show the member account page and when you log in, it takes you to a page that says it can't load the page, but if you go back, you'll be logged in and be able to access your content (at least, that's how it's working for me). And logging out seems to work just fine.

As I said in a previous post, if you can't access your member content, please let me know, and I'll send it to you in one format or another (likely PDF, ePub, or MOBI).

This has also kind of lit a fire under my ass to get the new mobile-friendly site design finished. I've actually gotten quite a bit done in just the past couple days since the migration completed. I've still got a long road ahead of me, but I'm making progress, which is better than not.

Bought the New Server

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Written by Kodi Wolf at 3:00 PM

Yeah, so after weighing my options, I broke down and bought the new server.

I'm currently in the process of having my sites migrated to the new server. Here's hoping it goes smoothly.

The Site is Down (Sort of)

Friday, September 22, 2023

Written by Kodi Wolf at 10:30 PM

The site is experiencing major technical difficulties.

Sometime on September 18 or 19, 2023, my hosting provider (HostGator) decided to migrate my VPS (virtual private server) to a new server without informing me and in the process broke PHP, which is what provides all of the functionality on my site.

The first two techs tried to say the problem was a scripting error on my part and that they couldn't help me, but after two days of insisting it was a server error (and troubleshooting the problem myself to prove it couldn't be a scripting error and was specifically related to pages with the .php extension), I finally got the support ticket escalated high enough to get a tech who investigated the problem properly and was able to inform me about the server migration I'd been unaware of and also how and why PHP stopped working.

They told me they can't put it back the way it was and my only options are to either wipe the server and install new versions of the system software (CentOS and WHM) and then reload my content, knowing it will probably break my very old aMember membership software (used on my paid member site for my original fiction), causing me to have to re-purchase it at about $150, so I can get the latest version (though HostGator offered to kindly waive the $75 charge for the reload and data retention service as a courtesy, but they also mentioned the server only has 768MB of RAM and they don't offer anything below 2GB nowadays because CentOS and WHM are resource hogs, so my site still might not work well or at all)...

...or I can purchase a new VPS with 2GB of RAM and migrate my content to that, since all the software will already be updated, which will cost about $400 upfront for a year's worth of hosting, which is actually a good deal compared to my current price of $600 a year ($50/mo), but after 12 months, that price will go up to $90/mo ($1,080/yr), which is almost double my current price, and I will still have to put out the $150 for the updated membership software because the old/current one won't run with the newer PHP (at least that's what I was told years ago when I looked into upgrading it after they put out a new prettier version).

Either way, I'm still looking at a lot of work to get everything up and running again. But for the past few years, I've been slowly working on a complete redesign of the paid site (which I planned to use for my fan fiction site, too) to make it mobile-friendly, so the prospect of putting a bunch of time and effort into patching up the old pages when I was planning on scrapping them anyway doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.

But that means I have to get the new design finished and fully tested while both of my sites remain out of commission.

I'm still in the process of trying to decide what the best course of action is. I'm not even sure I want to continue with HostGator after all this crap, but then that means hours of research into finding another host (particularly one that doesn't care about sexual content) and there's no guarantee my new choice would be any better.

Regardless of all that, at least HTML is still currently working (as of September 22, 2023 when I'm writing this), so I was able to create a clumsy workaround to get the index pages working for my main paid stories, root domain, and fan fiction sites, since I don't know which URLs people have bookmarked, but it's way too much work to do this for all the chapter and information pages right now, but it's the best I could do to at least let my members and other visitors know what's going on.

However, as of right now, none of my sites' pages work because they're all PHP, which means if you attempt to click on any of the links on the index pages, they won't work.

I currently have no access to the backend membership software because it too runs on PHP. This means I can't easily email my members to let them know what's going on because I can't access the mailing list feature from my membership software. (I could send emails manually and individually from my Yahoo or Gmail accounts, but that would be an insane time sink, not to mention Yahoo and Gmail have limits on how many emails you can send in a day.)

Thankfully, I have a fairly recent backup of the member database, so I should be able to recreate it when I get there (or figure out an alternative).

To be clear, I haven't been hacked and there has been no data breach.

If you're a member and you don't have the most recent copy of the story or stories you paid for, just email me at REMOVEmail4kkw-THESEfiction@PARTSyahoo.NOWcom with the name and email address you used for your membership and once I verify it against my member list, I will send you all the files you're entitled to in your choice of PDF, ePub, and/or MOBI. (Unfortunately, I can't offer the same for my fan fiction at this time.)

As I said above, I'm still in the process of trying to figure out what to do. I'm even considering just setting up a mailing list of my current members and using private Google docs to provide updates to my stories.

Of course, that requires getting a P.O. Box ($176/yr for the tiniest box), since I'm not comfortable showing my home address at the bottom of every email, which is required by free mailing list sites like MailChimp, when by law I shouldn't have to, since my emails aren't promotional, they're transactional as I fulfill my members' expectations to be informed when they have more content available or why they don't.

Unfortunately, that doesn't allow new people to find me or become a member. There's also my Patreon, but I don't post anything there because of their license terms (though I could post links to Google docs, which would avoid that issue).

And I've looked at hosting on websites like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify, since they can all handle payment processing, but their Terms of Use all state that sexual content is forbidden, so that's not an option.

I'm also super stressed about other life stuff that's happening, so this was really not good timing.

But rest assured, I'm still writing every day and I will figure out how to get updates to my members one way or another... eventually.

On the bright side, while my fan fiction site is not tops on my priority list, if I can get PHP working again, that site should be relatively easy to fix because all I'll have to do is replace the .html file with the original .php file and it should all go back to how it was before. It's the membership site that's going to be a headache.

With that in mind, please be patient as I try to sort this mess out.

Take care.

New Stories and Story Updates

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Written by Kodi Wolf at 6:30 PM

I just sent an email out to all my members regarding new stories and updates to current stories, but if you're a member and didn't get it, let me know and I'll forward it to you. It contains links to both fanfic and member's only content (about 194,000 words total) that I posted to some private Google docs because I can't muster up the energy to code all that content for my websites right now.

One day, I will code and post everything to my sites, but not right now.

Oh, and if you're not a member, but would like to check out the fanfic, go ahead and email me, and I'll send you those links. You won't be added to a mailing list, I promise. Only people who join my membership site or my Patreon get on my list (it's quite exclusive :) ) and I almost never send emails, except when there's an update.