Category Archives: Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

Non-English characters not shown correctly in a MySQL database inside phpMyAdmin

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The situation:

You have a MySQL database in a non-English language which works fine through web based apps. Because the encoding issues were not taken care of properly from the first place, when you want to view the records using phpMyAdmin (in xampp), you see garbage characters, like these:

مرکز آموزش توپخانه نزاجا

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Troubleshooting

Can’t access WordPress admin panel: “your ip is on a spam blacklist”

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You want to access your WordPress admin panel, or you are using it already, but suddenly you get a message (in an overlay maybe) telling you “your ip is on a spam blacklist“.

This is caused by a plugin in your WordPress site, and the plugin could have been installed by you, your host, or a 3rd party WordPress installer. Using FTP or host’s file manager, rename the plugin directory in wp-content/plugins to solve the problem. Alternatively you can try to remove your IP from spam blacklist here. Ironically you may not be able to reach Stop Forum Spam website from your blocked IP!

Troubleshooting

Fixing startup problems, after installing windows xp on windows 7

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There are enough instructions out there to fix this, I just want to point out some tricky issues.

  1. If you are using windows 7 DVD to boot & use “Startup Repair”, you may need to do it 3 times! (funny!)
  2. After successfully booting into 7, you may find that the partition containing xp is missing in My Computer. That’s because it has lost its drive letter. Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management & assign a drive letter.
  3. Drive letters are not something absolute, but relative. Windows 7 probably sees the drive it’s installed into as C, while xp can see it as another letter.
  4. If your windows installations are on different hard drives, keep in mind that there’s an option for hard disk boot priority in BIOS.