Software is a funny thing. Because of hidden flaws that are only exposed in odd “boundary conditions” (also known as “corner conditions”, situations outside the mainstream of operation) software can misbehave at seemingly random times.

We use the Total Cache plugin for improved loading speed. Last weekend, Total Cache decided to stop working. As a result, no new posts were visible on out home page until we noticed the problem and found a solution about 150 posts later.

During that time, our home page was stuck on May 11. All the new posts were in the blog, but unless you knew the link to the post (as our newsletter subscribers did), you would not have seen it. People must have thought we had gone on a holiday.

Working with the hosting company’s tech support team last night, we found the cause. The .htaccess file had been mishandled. We don’t know what software had messed it up. Once we found the cause, some simple cut and paste work solved it.

It was embarrassing for us and inconvenient for our users. But everything is here and you can scroll down the list of posts to check what you may have missed.

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