1&1 Hoses WordPress Sites on May 1, 2013

Migrate MySQL 4 DB NOW to MySQL 5 or Lose Your Site

[martinibuster]

1and1.com is "deactivating" MySQL 4 Databases on May 1st, 2013. All WordPress sites hosted on 1and1.com that have not migrated their databases from the old database to the new MySQL 5 databases may have their sites go offline. 1and1.com doesn't explicitly say the sites will go down, but their email states that they will be deactivating the MySQL 4 databases, which implies that sites not migrated may go dark.

If you host a database driven site on 1and1.com, log in, go to MySQL Administration and check what version of MySQL your site is using.

Full instructions here:
http://faq.1and1.com/web_space__access/mysql/20.html [faq.1and1.com]

The information below applies only to Linux Hosting packages with MySQL 4 databases. MySQL 4 is being phased out and therefore any data held within a MySQL 4 database must be migrated into a new MySQL 5 database.

Why is the migration not done automatically?
The migration can not be carried out automatically because of some features of MySQL 4 are not supported in MySQL 5 and in order to minimize the amount of transmission and handling of your private data. Because of this we are allowing customers to carry out the migration on their own, at their leisure.

How do I know if my databases are affected?
Any database created in the 1&1 Control Panel that says MySQL 4 as the version, will need to be migrated to a newly created MySQL 5 database. You can check what version of MySQL your databases are by logging into your 1&1 Control Panel and clicking on MySQL Administration from the Domains & Web Space section.

[ergophobe]

Goodness. People are still on MySQL 4? MySQL 5 was released Dec 24, 2003. That's 10 years ago. Granted, it took some time to become stable, but it's been stable for quite some time.

- last MySQL 4.x release: 2008
- last Apache 1.x release [EOL]: 2010

And yet, who's on Apache 1.3?

[Rosalind]

I wonder what percentage this will affect? You have to have had a database created before they started automatically installing MySQL 5 databases, and they don't say in the FAQ when they started doing this.

[ergophobe]

For most hosts this is dependent on CPanel (not sure if 1&1 uses CPanel or not though).

Anyway, CPanel stopped supporting MySQL 4 with the 11.32 release (Dec 4, 2012) and announced the change on Sept 11, 2012.

[cpanel.net...]
[docs.cpanel.net...]

[ergophobe]

Per the MySQL Support Lifecycle policy, extended support for MySQL 4.1 ended on December 31, 2009. MySQL users are encouraged to upgrade to a current production release of MySQL.

-- [mysql.com...]

[rogerd]

Funny how the announcement makes it sound like letting customers be responsible for the migration is a big benefit. "At their leisure..." :)

I'm sure there are loads of users who have no clue as to what version of MySQL they are running, or even what MySQl is.

A better approach would have been to identify customers with active MySQL 4 databases and proactively offer to assist them in the transition.

[DirigoDev]

"1and1" and "better approach" in the same post. LOL. No kidding. I've never heard of 1and1 doing anything proactive.

I do like their website builder TV commercial in the USA. Makes it look easy and all SEO friendly.

[martinibuster]

A better approach would have been to identify customers with active MySQL 4 databases and proactively offer to assist them in the transition.

Yes. At the very least 1and1 could have limited the announcement to those who were actually affected. My hosting accounts weren't affected but I still received the announcement, causing me about an hour of anguish.

[rsndll]

They also don't warn you that you'll run into problems if you continue to use their default php version (4) when you upgrade to MySQL 5