Portfolio page threw a 404 on a live client call last Thursday

I was walking through my site with a potential client in Cincinnati when my portfolio page just went blank. Turned out my host updated PHP and broke a plugin that ran the gallery. Spent 10 minutes sweating and apologizing while I scrambled to pull up backups. Client actually laughed it off but I lost momentum and never heard back after the call. Switched hosts that weekend and now I test every page before any meeting. Anyone else get burned by a silent update that nuked your site?

3 comments

3 Comments

martinez.paul6d ago

PHP update got me too last year, killed my contact form right before a demo. Now I run a staging copy on a cheap VPS and push changes only after testing everything manually in incognito mode. Keeps the live site safe and gives me a place to break things without clients watching.

henryr456d agoMost Upvoted

Used to think staging was overkill for small sites but after getting burned a couple times I get it now. @martinez.paul you're right, having that extra sandbox saves a lot of headache. Kinda like a safety net for when shit goes sideways.

abby_fisher6d ago

Same thing happened to me with a caching plugin after an update. Now I keep a local backup and preview every page before client calls.