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SOLVED Error displaying the error page: Application Instantiation Error

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    • Trog's Avatar
    • Trog
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    Re: SOLVED Error displaying the error page: Application Instantiation Error

    Posted 10 years 5 months ago
    • Problem Solved!

      SHORT ANSWER: Removing the 500,000 K2 comments fixed the problem.

      LONG ANSWER:

      SO, basically, there was a problem, that I fixed and made worse together.

      - If you visited the site, front-end or back-end all you saw on the page was this text "Error displaying the error page: Application Instantiation Error".
      - Web search points me to MySql DB and configuation.php issues.
      - No back-ups of anything exist. I'm only slightly better than novice when dealing with mysql.
      - Start looking first at configuration.php file. Plenty of documention available on every setting so no concerns, but everything looks ok.
      - I make a new user in c-canel/phpMysql, **assign the new user to DB properly** and then added the new User and Pass to configuation.php. No fix, no change. NOTE: My one concern when doing this was that the orignal Password in the Configuaration.php file was scrambled. I didn't know if it would accept my new non-scrambled password. ANSWER: It works fine unscrambled, and I assume would scramble again if I were to change my password throught the backend.
      - At somepoint here I'm assigning and unassigning users to the DB and apparently end up with none assigned.
      - Not knowing this, I decide to take a deeper look into the DB now. I did notice that it seemed large to me (15meg) I looked at a few tables like USERS and such, looking for something obvious, but I didnt see anything odd. (all this through c-panel)
      - I download a back-up to my Hard-Drive.
      - For no reason I decide to open the download using TextWrangler locally. Now that it was all in one list in my local editor I started just slideing my side bar down through all the tables and all of the sudden the page was filled with Fake Air Jordon, Gucchi Purse and all other kinds of ads, emails and such, a whole lot of it. I scrolled back up and noticed it was the K2 Comments Section. (obviously never clicked on that actual table using c-panels navigator, but easy to stumble on it once downloaded localy)
      - Site was bomarded by K2 comment spam, literally 499,978 comments. Over night. I did not active or use any of the users/comment features on the site, so there was no where for regular visitors to log-in or leave comments.
      - Went back to see if I could delete them from the back-end, but there was 500,000 of them, and I didn't want to do it 100 at a time!
      - this link provided above was the perfect solution for removing them: www.seogon.com/blog/bulk-delete-all-comments-in-joomla-k2 It removed them all in seconds. (THANKS!) I looked in every other K2 table and saw nothing.
      - site still broken. dread sets in.
      - Decide to make a 2nd new database and point to that, just to see if I got a different error.
      - After creating it I now had 2 databases to choose from in c-panel and noticed on the list view showed the users assigned to the DB next to the DB name. The new one I just made had one, and my original "broke" one didn't. I set it right there to the original user, saved, and the site cranked back up.


      So I did it to myself for about a week. The removal of the K2 Comments was the solution, but because I had monkeyed with the settings, I never noticed that I didn't have any user assigned to the DB. I just replaced the configuartion.php with the original I had saved at the begining.

      Updated Joomla to the latest verion, Enabled CAPTCHA in K2 Chat Setting to prevent it from happening again (well documented online).

      It hurt to write much of this and admit some errors, but If I can just help one person.

      Thanks for the help!

    • The following users have thanked you: prim, DanG, Matt

    #1111145
    • DanG's Avatar
    • DanG
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    Re: SOLVED Error displaying the error page: Application Instantiation Error

    Posted 10 years 5 months ago
    • Trog wrote:
      I'm only slightly better than novice when dealing with mysql.
      One word -> ADMINER
      Being a "novice when dealing with mysql" I wanted a replacement for the dreaded GUI of the PhPMyAdmin console so I picked this little baby up. It has helped me learn SQL so much that I do a lot of content entry directly into the DB. It has helped me in developing guides for RokGallery and RokSprocket issues. I give it
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      Trog wrote:
      It hurt to write much of this and admit some errors, but If I can just help one person.
      Prim and I both gave you a thank you (the official one) as every once in awhile users will trudge through and solve their own issue but not provide such an excellant discourse on their solution.
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      Trog wrote:
      Thanks for the help!
      Okay so maybe there is something we can contribute to earn that comment:
      1) Adminer
      2) Akeeba Backup (maybe make this as #1)
      3) Akeeba Admin Tools
      4) I'll keep my open for any othe issues you create topics for ;)
    #1111207

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