Last week I had a heart-stopping moment. It started out as a normal day. I was logging into the admin section of the blog and was notified that my password was incorrect. Since I have my password saved on my desktop machine, rather than typing it in manually, I was somewhat puzzled but I re-typed the password.
Still no go.
So I calmly clicked the “forgot my password” link. WordPress sent me an email with a link to change my password. I went to my inbox and clicked the link. I was then told I’d get a second email with my new, temporary password.
I waited.
And waited.
No new password.
So I tried again. Got the email with the link to change my password, but never received a new password.
Panic started to set in.
Then I remembered I’d had a friend look at the back-end of my blog when I’d had a problem with something. Problem solved! I asked if he remembered the password I gave him.
No.
Scrolled through our Skype chats to see if it was recorded there.
No dice.
My friend suggested my spam filter. I couldn’t see why the first email from WordPress would get through but not the second, but I was desperate. Checked spam. Still no luck.
Real panic. What if I couldn’t get into my blog – ever?!?
Started scrolling through my sent emails to see if I’d sent my friend the password that way.
Still no luck.
Then it hit me. Several weeks back I’d had some troubles with my site and had given tech support at my hosting company a login and password. Dug up what I’d sent them and tried using that login and password.
Success! I was able to get into the admin in my blog. I quickly changed my password for my main user name, recorded the login and password for the second user and created a third user with another email address I have.
My advice:
Learn from my scary episode. If you have a website, blog, Facebook fan page or any other web presence that is vital to your business, make sure you have more than one user name and password. Make sure both users are designated as administrators with full access and rights to the back-end. Make sure they are attached to different email addresses. If you don’t have a second email address, ask a trusted friend to be your backup or create a gmail account just for this purpose.
Trust me, if you ever have a moment like I had last week, you’ll be really glad you listened to me.
Andrea J. Stenberg
What are some of the ways you protect yourself from weird technology glitches? Please share your secrets here.
