SO LONG, ‘DAILY POST’

 

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Today, we’ll begin bidding farewell to our WordPress Daily Post theme. It is the very layout on this webpage you have been looking at since the site’s inception (by our late-George Griggs, founder) on January 27, 2012.

Lately, due to several “behind-the-scenes” issues the website has been dealing with in the second half of the year, it is now reality our theme can no longer sustain vital, much required, dated upgrades, apparently.

The “No Comments”, long having been realized on this website for some months now (read here), may just well stem from using our current Daily Post ‘theme’, it is more than likely just “out-dated”, having ran its designed course, not able to handled current website tech fixes as well (as I was recently informed by a Bluehost tech).

And despite the recent WordPress 5.0 upgrades, the theme has failed time and again to uphold the latest updates and several other important WordPress plugins and  security changes overall. In short, by keeping the Daily Post theme, it has become more realistic the “missing comments” will not be returning at all — if we continue using the site’s Daily Post theme.

Last week, Motor City Radio Flashbacks went off-line for some extended time (37 minutes!) just after the 2:00 p.m. hour, Friday, November 12 (see below). Unbeknownst to me, Bluhost attempted an upgrade with the theme’s PHP security codes (we have been stuck at PHP 5.6) with their latest version, 7.4. It didn’t work (and this happened before). The tech then had to revert back to the old PHP 5.6 version to get the site back online. PHP security upgrades are essential for all WordPress sites and blogs.

In lieu of that happening, same day, I tried to reach out to the theme’s developers, courtesy of WordPress, to let them know their Daily Post theme needed to be reviewed and most likely needed to be updated (obviously!). I also informed them I still wanted to keep their theme we have been using all these years.

Thus far, not a word in response from their end as of this writing.

As of this coming Friday, the hammer is coming down. Bluhost informed me last week that the PHP 7.4 security upgrade will become mandatory — will take immediate effect, November 20. 

Bluhost, in somewhat strong, but kind terms, suggested I should replace our Daily Post with a newer theme. Looks like we have no choice.

Sometime this coming Thursday, November 19, Motor City Radio Flashbacks will have a different look. Our new WordPress theme will be Twenty Fifteen. Having already previewed the selected theme (and the good news — all your posted comments will be visible and back up!!) the layout will look somewhat as close as possible to our (soon-departed) Daily Post theme.

 

So long, Daily Post. Has it been nearly nine years? It was very good to us . . .  indeed, while it lasted.

 

 

Jim Feliciano

 

Motor City Radio Flashbacks

Monday, November 16, 2020

 

 

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