By wjkjr on

My site has been down now since April. My host has a 2gb limit for my website and evidently it grew to 6.2gb. Once the host discovered my site was too large they cut off my site from writing anymore files. Now my site will not load and at one point showed maintenance mode. Now it doesn't show anything. It says "Site Cannot be Reached". I discovered later that "Backup and Migrate" was the issue. It was backing up without any parameters and the folders grew and grew. My site had archived over 5yrs of backups. I could see how far back the files went with Filezilla but I couldn't delete them. Using the file manager from my host, I could see even less. I am not a programmer and I need someone who could possibly correct the issues, get the site back online and then upgrade to the latest version. My biggest worry is losing all of my users and passwords. My site is a drupal 9 site. I have been rebuilding a new site on a localhost but I don't like the theme choices. As there are thousands, I can't even find anything remotely close to what my site is currently using.  My remote site uses Danland and I really like it but it is not supported by drupal 11.x. So there is that  too. Can someone point me in the right direction to help get my site back up and running?  I don't really have any support other than the forums. I tried Chatgpt and while it can help a little, it creates more headaches than solutions.

wjkjr

⋅ Categories: Drupal 9.x

Comments

dixit patel’s picture

dixit patel commented

Hi wjkjr,

Sorry you're dealing with this — this is fixable, but a few things to untangle carefully since data loss risk is real here.

First, don't delete anything yet. The "Site Cannot be Reached" / blank page after maintenance mode usually means PHP hit a fatal error or ran out of disk space mid-write, not that your database or core files are corrupted. The 6.2GB is almost certainly Backup and Migrate's old backup files piling up in sites/default/files/backup_migrate (or similar)  those are just archived .tar.gz/.zip files, safe to remove once you confirm what they are.

Steps I'd take, in order:

  1. Via FTP/file manager, navigate to the backup_migrate files folder and check file sizes/dates  likely you'll see years of backup archives. Move (don't delete yet) the oldest ones out via FTP download if you can, or delete only backup archive files (not core Drupal files) to get back under your host's 2GB limit.
  2. Once you're under the limit, check if the site loads again. If it still doesn't, check your host's PHP error log for the actual fatal error  that'll tell you if it's a memory limit, a corrupted .htaccess, or something else.
  3. Once the site is reachable again, disable the Backup and Migrate module (or at minimum turn off any scheduled backups) so it doesn't grow again immediately.
  4. Only after the site is stable and you have a manual export of your database (phpMyAdmin export) and the files directory downloaded locally, consider the Drupal 9 → 11 upgrade. Doing the upgrade with the site in a broken state first is risky stabilize first, upgrade second.

On the theme concern  since Danland isn't compatible with Drupal 11, you'll need to rebuild or pick a new base theme during the upgrade regardless, so that's a separate project from just getting the current site back online.

This is very doable, but honestly, given the data-loss stakes (5+ years of content) and that you're not a programmer, it's worth getting a second pair of hands for at least the recovery step so nothing gets deleted incorrectly. Good luck!

wjkjr’s picture

wjkjr commented

I contacted my host and was able to get access to phpMyadmin. They were able to delete all of the old backups. The site is now at 4.2gb and they set my site to a max of 6gb so I'm at least under the storage threshold. My site will now load but is stuck in maintenance mode. Now all I have to do now is turn off maintenance mode. I tried 

UPDATE config
SET data = REPLACE(data, 'b:1;', 'b:0;')
WHERE name = 'system.maintenance';

didn't work. 

If I need to find "that extra pair of hands" where do I look?

wjk

dixit patel’s picture

dixit patel commented

Hi wjkjr,

Glad the site is loading again. The reason your query didn't work is that in Drupal 8 and later, maintenance mode is not stored in the config table. It lives in the key_value table as state, so there was no system.maintenance row for your UPDATE to change.

Before anything else, please export your database from phpMyAdmin (Export → Quick → SQL) so you have a safe copy.

Then run this in phpMyAdmin's SQL tab:

sql
UPDATE key_value
SET value = 'b:0;'
WHERE collection = 'state' AND name = 'system.maintenance_mode';

If your tables have a prefix (for example drupal_key_value), use that table name instead.

After that, clear the cache by emptying (TRUNCATE) the cache_bootstrap, cache_config, cache_container, cache_default, cache_discovery, cache_render, cache_page and cache_dynamic_page_cache tables. If you don't clear them, the site may keep showing the maintenance page. If your host gives you Drush, this does the same in one go:

drush state:set system.maintenance_mode 0
drush cr

Once you can log in as admin, you can also check /admin/config/development/maintenance and make sure "Put site into maintenance mode" is unticked.

Regarding help: you can post a job on the Drupal Association's service provider directory (drupal.org/drupal-services) or ask in the #support channel on Drupal Slack (drupal.org/slack). Since your data is safe in the database, a developer should be able to handle the upgrade (Drupal 9 is end-of-life, so going to 10 first and then 11 is usually the safest path) without touching your users or passwords.

Also, please remember to turn off or limit the scheduled backups in Backup and Migrate so the files folder doesn't fill up again.

Good luck, and feel free to post back if anything fails.

wjkjr’s picture

wjkjr commented

I need to try to get out of maintenance mode first to see exactly what my site is doing. I have a backup but im apprehensive that I can restore the site if something goes sideways. Ill repost on Friday and let you know of any progress. 

dixit patel’s picture

dixit patel commented

That's a sensible approach - take your time with it.

One thing that might help with the apprehension: the SQL query I shared only updates one row in one table. It doesn't touch your content, users, or any other data. And since you already have a backup from phpMyAdmin, you can restore that exact state if anything goes wrong.

Post back on Friday - happy to walk through it step by step if needed.

wjkjr’s picture

wjkjr commented

The site now loads and Im out of maintenance mode, but my admin menus are missing as well as the sites menus..

dixit patel’s picture

dixit patel commented

Hi wjkjr,

That's pretty normal after truncating the cache tables by hand instead of doing a proper rebuild — the router and menu links need to regenerate, and just emptying the cache tables doesn't always trigger that on its own.

If you've got Drush, just run drush cr — that forces a full rebuild including menus and routes, and honestly fixes this most of the time on its own.

No Drush? Go to /admin/config/development/performance and hit "Clear all caches" there instead. Then check /admin/structure/menu and see if your menus are actually still listed. If they are, it's probably just that the menu blocks got knocked out of their regions — worth checking /admin/structure/block for that.

If the menus aren't even showing up at /admin/structure/menu, don't panic yet. TRUNCATE only touched the cache_* tables, not your actual content tables, so the menu data is almost certainly still sitting in menu_link_content in the database even if the UI isn't showing it right now.

Try the cache clear first and see where that gets you.

wjkjr’s picture

wjkjr commented

I have hired a developer who said he can get back up and running. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I have talked to him on the phones several times now and drupal is his job. His linkedin page shows him being employed by Aquia and others. He has 20yrs experience with drupal. Just hoping he can get me back up and running. The only thing left I need to do is find a new host as my current one does not allow SSH so composer and drush cannot be used. Any ideas?

thanks