MT Join Fight of Dreaded 500

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Somewhere the beginning of this month, MovableType was being havoc-ed by a dreaded 500 error. Plagued by the Internal Server Error, I straight away emailed my awesome host support whom also is a friend of mine. We were banging our heads against the monitor trying to spot the problem if it was MT or the server.

Keeping our cool and not pointing fingers, we calmly tried solving the problem. I took steps in disabling the blog awhile and informed visitors of the downtime. Quickly tweaking the MT default layout and only having the shoutbox for communication. Yes, I finally found the other good thing of the shoutbox.

Later then the MT support forums were flocking with more people having same agendas. Quite a bad run for MT since they’re about the release the official 3.2 version. But with potential developers at hand, I think this problem would be solved soon..I hope. The current problem reported is having to do with MT and cPanel.

In the meantime, don’t be surprised if I moved to WordPress awhile till version 3.2 is out. I wanna take it for a test run and see if it’s difference would benefit me for future usage.

Cheers.

Posted by dannyfoo on July 6, 2005 | Filed Under News | View Comments |

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Response #1 by ireneQ on July 6th, 2005

It’s affecting my site too, although apparently only when I try to save & rebuild an existing post. I’m still on MT 2.64.

Oh Lord, I just took a closer look at my index page and my footer’s CSS is misbehaving all of a sudden. Arrrgh!
Response #2 by dannyFoo on July 6th, 2005

I actually have WP alreay running somewhere on my server. If this problem doesn’t get solved by the time I come up with something new to post, I’ll be migrating there in the meantime.

The version you have was before MT restricted multiple authors. The last version of that I have was MT 2.661. Real old. LoL!
Response #3 by CS on July 6th, 2005

I am also thinking of migrating to WP, but still hoping that the web host will sort out this MT problem. Would really appreciate if you post up your MT->WP experience. Is it possible to use back the same templates and design?
Response #4 by Tiara on July 6th, 2005

So I’m not the only one! I was trying to update Asha’s site (v 2.6.4) and it won’t work. The only thing that worked was previewing the entry before posting it.

I thought someone had hacked into the system because we haven’t changed anything for months. Huh.
Response #5 by ireneQ on July 7th, 2005

My “tech support”, the friend who helps me with all the technical IT stuff, is contemplating a move to WP too. He has installed it on our server (he’s a blogger as well & shares server space with me). But he was telling me he doesn’t really like WP because its templates are very inflexible or something like that. He says he may try Drupal… err… whatever that is! haha
Response #6 by alvin on July 7th, 2005

“But he was telling me he doesn’t really like WP because its templates are very inflexible or something like that. He says he may try Drupal… err… whatever that is! haha”

Really?

1.) WP breaks template into three of four parts(header, footer, index and sometimes sidebar) so that users can have maximum control over their blog design.

2.) The theme system amkes sure that you can have a lot of themes under different folder and switch it as you may. It also means you can work on new theme without actually having to mess with current one.

3.) Your blog design is limited only by your creativity since WP, like movable type, rely entirely on css and xhtml just like any other websites to style the blog.

WP and Movable type for me coexist in a fine environment that help launches the blog boom. The only reason why I migrated to WP after being such a long time MT user are comment spam combat mechanism and plugins (extensions) flexibility. There’re tonnes of plugins (think firefox extensions) that are written by WP users and some of them are pretty wacko and useless . Like displaying your date in a star-trek calendar system or deleting all your WP sql database by one click of a button. But it;s nice to know that you have the options.
Response #7 by dannyFoo on July 7th, 2005

Alvin uses WP so he’s addressed some of the things already. I’ll just add the experience so far I’ve had since putting a version of it on my server as my layout playground.

Installing WP is a-LOT faster compared to MT. If you face errors, they’re pretty much the same problem. Writeable files or you need make sure you edit a file before uploading. But overall, WPs installation is way faster. Upgrading in WP still requires a click of a button but MT suggests you first delete old files than upload the new. So fair and square and you decide there.

First touch inside WP was a new area to me but very quickly you’d understand how to use it. It’s easy to add and activate plugins as well as themes if you choose not to have create your own. Alike MT, you might want to integrate a spam fighter to help you later.

Customizing the WP template. I have to agree that it is slightly more challenging compared to MT. Why? Because I’m not a developer and I know basic HTML compared to toying with PHP scripts. As Alvin said, WPs template is split into those parts which are pulled in as PHP includes later. I honestly think MTs tag control of where you want certain things to show is easier to understand.

Example:
When you want to display an entry body, you just place there. Of course, you need to remember it needs to be placed within the tags.

I find Drupal more of a portal CMS than a publishing tool. Other publishing engines out there that I’ve heard or mentioned are Nucleus, TextPattern and Symphony (still beta).

WP is good if you need a couple of plugins because I presume the developers made them from PHP.

My suggestion is research each publishing engine, what they’ve got to offer then narrow your choice and see which works better for you. I’m going to be a plugin-a-holic soon so yeah, WP would be good for me.

Cheers.
Response #8 by CS on July 7th, 2005

I did install WP yesterday and gave it a try. It’s not that complicated but still it is going to take a while to re-design the theme to make it looks exactly like my old MT page. The only that bother is that trasnfering all the old MT archives into WP, I’ve read a few articles about it and i think there’s an plugin for it, somewhere, but I don’t think the whole process is going to be easy.
Response #9 by dannyFoo on July 7th, 2005

Hmm, I’m using MT 3.17 and nope, it wasn’t that difficult migrating my archives into WP. Because I think in MT 3.15 and later, SixApart has solve the problem when exporting to be imported in WP. Back then, they said MT had troubles because of the time format difference. Then WP created a plugin for easier migration.

But now it’s not necessary anymore if you’re using MT 3.15 or later I guess. You could just save the exported entries as ‘import.txt’ with Firefox and place that file in the same folder as the mt-import.php or something like that. Then just type in the import URL and follow just ONE step and you’re done.
Response #10 by LcF on July 7th, 2005

Temporary switch to WP? How to you swictch back to MT from WP later?

btw, you do not need to know PHP in order to design WP template. WP template tag is NOT PHP(though written by PHP).

Check out WP template tags.