Friday 11 November 2011

Day 289-The Day I Lost My Blog


It had just happened and I am still a little shell shocked. About an hour and a half ago, when it was still 11/11/11 and as I was browsing blogs and leaving comments, my account was suddenly suspended. It happened innocently enough- I wrote a comment and when I tried to publish it, I realised that I was signed out. In the drop down box where Blogger asked you to pick the account you wanted to sign in as, I picked Google and was brought to the sign in page. I tried to sign in and I got this


Account has been disabled


If you've been redirected to this page from the sign-in page, it means that access to your Google Account has been disabled.



A few more futile attempts later,  I  contacted the admin and emailed them  about what happened.



I then tried to access my blog and to my horror,  I was brought to a page that say the blog at sansdollhousediaries.blogspot.com has been removed. Many many many attempts later, I had to resign myself to the fact that my blog was gone. All 231 posts , 3 years , records , pictures! Vanished into thin air! 


NO NO NO!!!!










ARGH!!!! 
&*^% &^%










.............




.............










Maybe I will finally have time to stitch 
or 
this could just be a hitch?







I think I went through all 4 stages of grief in that one minute. 



I emailed again, this time to tell them what had happened to my blog.

I then spent the next hour in cold sweat, reading about how people had waited for months after their blogs were removed and never regained access to their blogs. There were many reasons given for the suspension: copyright infringement, spam, suspicious clicking (??!!).  I tried to think , did I not attribute authorship?  Maybe I was leaving too many comments?

At 11.11pm (I think) and with trembling hands, I signed in using another gmail account. This time, I got a page that asked me how will you feel if one day you lose access to Google(?!). They then asked for a notification email and my mobile for verification purpose.  I keyed in both.

I logged out and then tried one more time to log into this blog. Lo and behold, a new page! This time to inform me that they would need me to provide my mobile number for the verification password as they had detected some invalid activities.


I got my blog back after that.


I don't even know how to describe that 90 minute ordeal. It's like a wake up call where the alarm clock never stopped ringing for 90 minutes.


I must be really frazzled because all I wanted to do was to write all this down. For record and to remind me not to panic the next time it happened.

And I can tell I am still not thinking straight.

What's the point of writing all this down in a blog that could vanish into thin air again?

63 comments:

Unknown said...

OH EMM GEE

THANK GOODNESS IT IS BACK

*BIGBIG HUGS*

*wipes sweat off your brow*

walaoweh.....if it ever happened to me...OMG!!!!!!! now i don't know if i should update my gmail verification to include my phone number (i don't usually give it out, especially online!!)...*shudder*

Flora said...

Oh Sans, I'm not too sure to have understood what has happened, has happened and HOW! I'm just happy to see that your blog still exists :-)
Now, take a good chicken soup, whatever time is: chicken soup heals everything, as they say in the wonderful movie "Like Water for Chocolate" :-)
I will send you my plumcake cauliflower, but I think that during the journey, the police dogs become suspicious ...
Tomorrow, finally, this annoying palindrome will be forgotten and we will return to our daily lives :-)
"I love technology only when it works" (I think to make me print this phrase on a shirt!)
Mini hugs, Flora

Sans! said...

Babe DO IT! I got that page before and I keyed in my office number and an old email add that I forgot to update. I mean that was 3 over years ago!

Like you, I hate giving out mobile number online, to banks , shoot , even clients!

But I got my verification number via mobile just now.

So yes, do it . And after that , we have to think of how we are going to keep a record of everything we have written. I have pdf 3 posts so far.. :). 259 to go.....wahliow!

The Old Maid said...

Oh gosh! Whatever it was I am so glad you are back with your blog! I can imagine all that sweat running down my back if it was me, swearing not to mention...;)
Have a peacefull night anyway.:)

Sans! said...

Oh Flora, may I borrow your shoulders? I need someone to shake my anxiety away. Ok, chicken soup it is..*a virtual slurp and some chomps chomps . Gone, your cauliplumcake I mean :) (Cinds, learn how to make this at our next meet?)

I have been meaning to make a copy of this blog somehow but kept pushing it back. Seriously, in the last 1 1/2 hour, I really wanted to give up everything to do with minis, being very irrational with anger.

Writing it down was cathartic.

Sans! said...

Peaceful, Ewa? I wish..sighhhh.

Not easy to forget this 11/11/11 night. :)

Susanne said...

OMG what a nightmare! I am so glad you got it back again. I have often wondered about the future in blog-land, when will they become old fashioned, and deleted? How do we save our material for the future? We will have to discuss this when we meet in Rome ;-)
Love, Susanne

Ana Anselmo said...

I couldn´t believe when i read it in Facebook, very quickly I tried to connect to your blog, and I was so happy, everything is here!!!!!!
What an experiance Sans, my heart was beaten so quickly and it wasn´t my blog, I can imagine your heart during these 90 minutos...
A great and special hug! we are all here!

Unknown said...

OH EMM GEEEEEEE pdf?!?!?!? i have been slowly trying to figure out how to design and organize my website, might as well do as you are and do some backups, i think blogger does have a function of sorts to do backup? i better go check it out but now i'm very sleepy....been spending loooong days at the office....

you must be super alert what with all that adrenaline coursing through your system :O

Ana Anselmo said...

there are some guys that transform a blog into a book, but I think is very, very expensive...

Ana Anselmo said...

here is the link http://blogspot.sharedbook.com/blog2print/googleblogger/index.html

Eva said...

ooooooooohh! I was really scare...but you are here again :)))
Good!! I know you deserve a long email :) Promise...
Un beso!

carmen said...

vaya aventura!! me alegro mucho de que todo estè resuelto....

Natalia's Fine Needlework said...

Dear Sans! I am so sorry that you went through that horror. I lost all my patterns last week and know this feeling. How lucky you are and we, all your admires, to get it back! How to PDF the posts?

Margriet said...

I'm so glad you have your blog back!!!
But do you think it's something blogspot does to ensure people to give them their information???
I don't feel comfortable to leave my phonenumber, but I don't want to loose my blog either :-(

Rosamargarita said...

Hola Sans! de verdad te ha sucedido todo esto? es algo terrible
Debo entonces dar mi numero de telefono cuando me lo pide Google o G mail?????
Besos y me alegro todo este resuelto

Drora's minimundo said...

What a terrible experience for you and a big fright of losing our blogs for all of us. I have a backup and will make sure now that everything is copied and upto date. I am so glad you have your blog back.
Hugs

rosanna said...

OMG !!!!!
That's a nightmare that I often had and now it becomes true!!!!!
PANIC!!!!! I must find a way to save all my posts AND comments AND pics. I cannot even imagine of losing these 3 precious years of life.
NO NO NO!!!! umbeareable, unthinkable.
My dear,I perfectly understand how you felt, My stomach is aching at the moment.
Thank goodness it was only a short span...tooo long I know but still here you are and I am so glad to see you. Big hugs, Ro

Piikko said...

Oh Sans, what a relief that your blog is still here!!!
I must admit that if this happened to me I don't know if I could do anything. I'm hopeless with these kind of things. Last week I was informed that my picasa album is full. It is giving enough troubles to me.:( I also would like to know how to make pdf?
I really understand your feelings and I'm so glad that everything turned out all right.
HugsHugsHugs, piikko

Unknown said...

Oh. Gasp. Ugh. Ack. The horror! The horror! It's like the virtual equivalent of coming home from work and finding out your house burnt down, that there's nothing left-it's just you without anything that proves you have been there, done this, gone there, thought that. A horrible, horrible feeling. My heart was in my throat, following your ordeal. I'm beyond relieved to see you restored and well, not safe, but here, right now, with us.

I know we drown in paper, but there's something to be said for things we hold in our hands, though it can be lost or damaged just as well. They say somewhere on Blogger that we can have our blogs printed and bound, doesn't it? But then that doesn't help us share, and takes us away from our far away friends, the ease with which we reach out and talk with each other so easily and immediately. I would miss you so much, Sans.

Maria Ireland said...

What a horrible experience for you. Thank goodness it wasnt lost for good. Phew welcome back to blog land :)
Hugs Maria

Alexandra said...

I'm so happy for you and for me,that your blog is there again.
I did not think of all the beauty that was missing from your blog.
I'd like to thank you for your sweet message on my blog post with the cat.

Dear regards, Alexandra

BiWuBär said...

OMG, that's a nightmare... I can imagine what you've gone through. But what counts is that you got it back - it would have been a terrible loss, what should I do without your magical posts? They're always like a 10-minute-vacation to me. I often wonder how they manage to store all those writing, pictures, links etc. - it must be an incredible amount of data. But being total dumb in these things those thoughts don't lead me anywhere...

Hugs
Birgit

P.S.: I know Yngwie Malmsteen by name, not much of his music - but one thing is for sure... Yngwie plays like Ritchie Blackmore, not vice versa (LOL).

Daydreamer said...

What a Relief to see you are Posting this from your original Blog! All is not lost!!!
This has to be the ultimate bloggers nightmare.... what would we do, any of us, to be cut off and have all our work lost?
Sans, I am So relieved to see you got your blog back! And that you knew what to do to contact them and get help!
WHEW! What a scare!
And What a RELIEF!

Ara said...

My heart sunk when I saw the title of this post!! So glad you got everything back... what a defeating feeling that would be!!! I don't have near as much as you but I think I would def cry and eat my weight in comfort food! Hugs to you and your blog! Will have to start PDFing my own from now on!

Unknown said...

What a nightmare! I`m glad you have your blog back. Now and then I think I need to start taking backup of my blog, and forget it again, perhaps this is a reminder to all that we need to do a backup.
Mona

Josje said...

I was just thinking yesterday how odd it is I never see updates of your blog in my reader, and hey! I see an update of your blog. Good grief, what an experience you have had. You are not to be envied Sans! But I am so glad you have got your blog back.
I have thought about the 'life span' so to speak, of a blog. Lets say after 10 years, or 15 or however long, you stop blogging. What happens to it then? Does it stay online forever? I doubt that. Would you want that? I don't know. I would like to keep a copy for myself though, or maybe my family. With the comments, that would be nice. So a printed version would be good. I just read in one of the comments that blogger provides a printing service, I'll have to look into that!

One tiny good thing which came out of this: I got your blog update in my reader! Maybe now I will get them more frequently.

Eliana said...

What a choke! You did not deserve to suffer that in fact no one deserves.
I relieved you're here, your blog is a treasure and losing it would be a tragedy.
Hugs

cockerina said...

Oh what a terrible shock it must have been. poor, dear Sans!
I am happy that everything is back to normal, I think I experienced the same panic, and then anger, and sense of defeat ..
if the blogosphere, lose your blog, there would be less a star in the sky!
hugs
Caterina

Ascension said...

Sans....cuanto siento el mal momento que has pasado.
Hubiese sido un drama que hubieses perdido tu blog, con las maravillas que hay y toda la historia que tambien hay detras.
ME ALEGRO MUCHISIMOOOOOOO!!!!!!
que todo se haya solucionado.
Estas bien?????????
besitos ascension

Plushpussycat said...

Dear Sans! It would have been a horrible loss if your blog was gone for good. Let's start talking as bloggers about how we can back up and save our posts, comments, etc. Drora says she backs up her posts. I would like to know how to do that. You mentioned making pdfs. I'd like to learn how to do that. If everyone can start sharing what they know, it will help everyone else. So glad you got it back, Sans! :-)

GB said...

Thank god it's still here. I was horrified when I read your post, clicked over as fast as I could.

Okay now the main thing is to not panic and to keep blogging. keep blogging you hear me?

Sans! said...

Susanne, can you imagine if we are in Rome right now, we would have been right in the middle of a historic moment. :)

You will have to tell me when will be a good time for our "Roman Holiday". Of course, we must invite our Italian friends as well.

Sans! said...

O Ana! It was quite a scary moment. I really experienced so many different emotions in that first 10 minutes.

Anger at 1st at Blogger, myself for not keeping a copy, then this imaginary person who may have lodged a complaint against my blog.

Denial when I kept telling myself maybe it was just a mistake.

Depression at the thought that all my records were gone.

Finally I just thought ok, if its gone, its gone. I won't write again for a while until Blogger restore my blog.

Strangely, I wasn't thinking of disappearing from blogland because I knew I could set up another account and have a closed blog and still visit all of you and to whine about my missing blog.

Since the incident, I am more anxious now about maintaining my friendships with all of you. To me that incident was a wake up call.

Ana, I will email you shortly about Lisbon :).

Sans! said...

Cindy, I am not sure if we want to use Google related or Blogger to back up because when I lost access, I lost access to ALL my blogs.

But there are some suggestions here:

http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/11/back-up-your-blogger-blog/.

I will definitely do it soon.

PDFing my post is a bit dumb . Each post is 17 pages long, thanks to all my blinkies..lol

dalesdreams said...

Agh! I'm so sorry you went through this! :(

This happened to me just this past week, but not an hour and a half, I lost it for three days, I was totally freaking out, as I have everything on my blog.

Thankfully, they found me not to be a spam blog, but it was so upsetting.

I'm glad you got your blog back, I'm glad I got my blog back. :)

Sans! said...

Ana, I have just spent yesterday exporting and then importing thsi blog to a new account in wordpress.com. The one in wordpress is a private one so that no one can leave spam comment or try to do anything funny to the blog since I am the only one with access.

It is not as pretty *ahem as the blog here but at least I have a record somewhere. :)

Sans! said...

Eva, with the near loss of the blog, I really felt a stronger need to remain in close touch with everyone here :).

Sans! said...

Carmen, en realidad no es más. Puede volver a ocurrir. Debemos pensar en una manera de guardar una copia de nuestro blog o podemos perder todo, todo! :(

Sans! said...

Oh NO!!!!! Natalia! You lost all your patterns! That's surely worse than losing the blog. Is there anyway you can retrieve them? Those beautiful patterns!

By the way, forget about pdf (print in adobe acrobat or if you do not have acrobat, download this freeware from http://www.cutepdf.com/). If you have 232 post and almost 8000 comments like my blog, it will take weeks. The formatting of your page is also not the same as the one on the blog (see the pictures on this post).

A better way is to do it like what I have just explained to Ana, saving a copy of the blog on your harddrive (but it is again in a format that is different from how it appears on the web) or having exactly the same blog hosted on another provider, in my case wordpress. Seriously, if you can write a blog, you can do this, it is very very easy.

Go to wordpress.com to start an account 1st.Once you do that , you will come to a page that gives you an option to import blogs from blogger. If you use the same email address, it is very easy because all your blogger blogs will then appear in the wordpress option for you to import. All you need to do then is to pick the blog to import. Save your settings to closed blog with no access granted to the public if you don't want to have to monitor the same blog on 2 servers. If you are not clear, email me and I will try and help you.

Sans! said...

Margriet, I am thinking the same.

Whether blogspot wanted to just scare me into giving my mobile. I am very paranoid about giving my mobile because in Singapore, numbers are given out by banks and other service providers for spam ads and they do with no consequences. But due to unhappiness, there will be legislation here soon to fine millions of dollars for offenders who use mobile numbers given in confidence for advertising purposes.

Whether it was blogger's intention or not, it definitely worked. haha :) I would have begged them on my knees to take my number in exchange for my blogs back :)

Sans! said...

Rosam, es Google. Blogger también está en Google y Gmail. Así que cuando te registras en menos de una cuenta de Google o de Gmail o Blogger, usted tiene acceso a todas las funciones. Cuando se pierde el acceso de esa cuenta, también se pierde todo. Tengo 3 blogs y los 3 blogs ya no estaban. Tuve que dar mi número de móvil a Google para que me pudiera enviar una contraseña de verificación.

Como ya he explicado, usted debe pensar de una forma de copia de seguridad de tu blog. Acabo de empezar otra cuenta en wordpress.com. Entonces la importación de este blog en el servidor de wordpress. Correo electrónico si usted necesita ayuda.:)

Sans! said...

Good for you, Drora! Now that I have a backup on wordpress, I will need to constantly back it up. Maybe after each post.

Sans! said...

Rosanna, if you can , read my earlier reply about wordpress. BACKUP!! :)

I know Matteo is away but using wordpress is easy especially for Bloggers blog.

On a side note, it has been raining non stop over the weekend and still quite heavy now. And there are flash floods here, up to knee level in some places. So yes, Singapore is experiencing some floods too.

By the way, do you like your new PM "Super Mario?"

Sans! said...

Oh Piiko, I will have the same headache about picasa albums soon. I have such huge pictures! It actually happened to me once and I found out that I have also uploaded some of my travel pictures so I deleted all those albums not related to my blog.

Don't delete any albums linked to your blog or the photos will also disappear from the blog.

Sans! said...

Amy, yes, the thought has crossed my mind about whether I will disappear too , together with my blogs since none of you can access my blogs as well.

Who are we in the virtual world without our blogs ? It really will be like being dead except its worse because there will be no footprints, no records, no signs at all that you were ever here. At least not as Sans! You are absolutely right, it is like this person has never even existed!

I have always wanted to keep my blog in a hard copy. Bound and hard cover like a coffee table book with comments in fine print. 1 year = 1 volume. I really must look into doing this.

Alas, I have calculated the cost. US$1.5k! *gulp

Sans! said...

Thank you Maria Ireland. Phew indeed!

Sans! said...

Alexandra :) making friends on blogland has to be the most precious thing that comes out of having a blog.

Yes,loss of blog may mean that the records may be gone (not if we back up :). ) but I hope that the friendships made here will prevail :).

Sans! said...

Birgit, if Ritchie Blackmore is the reason Yngwie plays that way, then off with Richie's head too! teehee

You guys are always so sweet about my blog :).

Actually now that you remind me, I have to say that I got over being angry with Blogger real fast after I read their point of view on why they sometimes shut blogs down without investigation 1st. 6000 such blogs are complained against every day! It is scary, the numbers.

Back up back up back up, Birgit, like the back up singers in Deep Purple, I can't scream that enough ..teehee

Sans! said...

Bets, it is about 3 days after the incident and I am still a little haunted about what happened.

I can't blame blogger of course, it has accorded me a great way to communicate and it is FREE! But that said, many things can caused you to lose your blog. Here is a link to where this girl said she cried for a week only to be told the blog was gone for good : http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=1cb92586481af4b5&hl=en.

More importantly, read the links there to see what kind of infringement can get your blogs removed.

Sans! said...

OMG Dale, I just read about your ordeal! 3 days! Poor you!

It hasn't happened here so frequently that we are seeing a trend. But it is a good wake up call.

(((((((((((((Dale))))))))))))))

I wonder how much it will help if we give each other testimonials that we don't have a spam blog...

Sans! said...

Haha Ara :)..trust me, food was the last thing on my mind in that 90 minutes.

Anyway, I heard that if you are breastfeeding, you can eat your weight in food because you lose the weight real fast. Is it true I wonder?

Sans! said...

Mona, the whole back up process will not take more than the 5 minutes that you take to sign up a new account with another blog provider and then you just wait for the blog to be imported into the new server.

I was stitching when the blog was being imported. Because mine is a huge blog, it took about 4 hours . But you don't have to sit at the computer, you can do other things like mini :).

Sans! said...

Josje, I so agree with you. Nothing last forever. Look at geocities- now gone even yahoo. For sure, Blogger too will be gone one day.

Even if it cost, I will want to print my blog into books. :)

Sans! said...

Thank you for your shoulders to cry on, Eliana. Some of you are new friends I have just met. I will hate it that we lose contact just when we are staring to know each other :(.

Sans! said...

(((((((((((((Caterina)))))))))))))))

You are so sweet and your words send me comfort :). I am relieve I got my blogs back but I will be lying if I say the anxiety is totally gone. I feel like going to another blogsite to back up my blog a few more times :).

Sans! said...

Haha G . Et tu !

Sans! said...

Jen, have you read my suggestions to the others? If you need any more clarification, let me know via email, ok?

Sans! said...

Sí, la Ascensión, se resuelve. Mi consejo para usted es que usted debe hacer una copia de tu blog. Hablar con la comunidad española y se ayudan mutuamente para respaldar sus blogs. Muchos de ustedes han invertido tanto en sus blogs, yo lo odio también que ya no puedo encontrar en blogland. Entonces sabes que definitivamente irá a España en busca de ti! :)

asukasakumo said...

GAsp! The horror! ((hugs))
I am glad that you had your blog back! :)

Kikka N said...

SANS: What a terrible experience! Many Warm Hugs from me to You!

I am so relieved to notice The Happy Ending... You have Your Beautiful Blog !

Kikka

Unknown said...

What a horror trip. I'm so glad you have your blogs back.

Hugs from Craftland

Meapuntoatodo said...

Menudo susto ! que horror ! me alegro muchisimo que hayas recuperado tu maravilloso blog ! Un gran beso. Mariajo

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