Hi Gents,
Sorry for dropping out you y'all. I spent most of Saturday updating the five WordPress installs that I manage, and building a sixth. All seemed well until I went to post a tip, and I found that the Generous Husband blog had some significant problems. I think it's all fixed now - this will serve as a test post to verify that e-mail and RSS are working correctly. BTW, in getting things fixed the cookie code was changed - so if you had "log me in automatically" set you will have to log in again now.
To manage a tip out of this - the problem seems to have come from some very old code that was still hidden away here. When this blog was built, it was run from the server via a backdoor so that the old system could stay active till I was ready to switch over. When I switched over, I failed to remove one reference to the way the system was set up and tested. That code sat there, forgotten, for months, surviving through a number of updates. Then unexpectedly an update stumbled over that code and made a big mess. I had to find and remove that old reference, and then do some fixing.
Do you have any "old code" or "old references" in your memory? Things long forgotten that seem to be unimportant until some event trips you, or your bride, over that old code? It can be a word, a look, a question - something that taps that old memory and unleashes a flood of pain, hurt, anger, or some other undesired thing.
It's tempting to think these things can be buried and forgotten. It's easy to rationalise that dealing with these things is a bad idea - let sleeping dogs lie as it were. Trust me, these things have a way of getting you, and they usually do it at the worst possible time. Rather than being at the mercy of the unknown, find a good time to deal with things that could come back to get you.