404 errors after install of 3.8.3

[FoodTVFans]

Hi folks - Just updated to 3.8.3 last week, then suddenly about 3 days ago I am no longer able to login as my admin account nor any other user. I'm getting a "page not found" or 404 error.

What's odd is that content spammers are somehow still creating new accounts and posting spam as recent as a few minutes ago, however I can not create new accounts. RSS Feeds are still being posted fine, it seems that I have just lost control of vBulletin.

I have been trying to contact the ISP that installed the upgrade (and uninstalled vBSEO at the same time as it was conflicting with vBadvanced) and I have been unable to get any response from the ISP either, which is extremely strange as thier support has been 100% top notch until the last week (yes I have paid my hosting fees - LOL!)

Any ideas appreciated.
foodtvfans.com

[beishe8]

(and uninstalled vBSEO at the same time as it was conflicting with vBadvanced)

Some important file has been deleted with that uninstall.

[FoodTVFans]

That seems likely. I am confused as to how content spammers are still creating accounts and posting when I can't log into the control panel. I would just shut the board down until I can locate someone who can repair it, but I can't even log into the control panel.

Some important file has been deleted with that uninstall.

[FoodTVFans]

Wow... I spoke about 10 minutes too soon.... vBSEO is now installed again and now I can log in again.. Off to delete spam and then take a look at the vbadvanced issue.

[cellarius]

Did you remove the .htaccess rules for vBSEO when you uninstalled the software?

[FoodTVFans]

Did you remove the .htaccess rules for vBSEO when you uninstalled the software?

Negative. However vBSEO has been installed again. Same problems of 404 errors everywhere but it's being looked at by the ISP.

It's hard to say what could have caused this as here is the chain of events;
1) vBulletin 3.8.2 working fine
2) 3.8.2 has vBSEO installed, working fine for months (nice google rankings)
3) vBAdvanced installed, not tested for a few weeks but when trying it found that all links were broken
4) vBSEO uninstalled. Working fine just with no SEO op with expensive license.
5) Suddenly several days later WHAM, 404 errors everywhere, admin can't even log in as a user (nor log OUT from another computer with login cookie) OR Control panel
6) Today - VBAdvanced scrapped, VBSEO re-installed, admin can log in now via COntrol panel yet can't delete spam, same problems exist of broken links or 404 errors when trying to log into the board as admin or any user.

Fun stuff.

[vbplusme]

vbseo does not uninstall elegantly and it is the reason that you are getting all the 404, they have an uninstall "procedure" on their site but it is totally useless. The reason you are getting all the 404 is that the htaccess file is still pointing to all the original "user friendly" URLs that it created the first time around. Reinstalling VBSEO may not be very useful to fixing that problem it the original file index was deleted. The real uninstall procedure isn't pretty and it hoses your search engine indexing so you have to redirect all the broken links in .htaccess so the search engines know where to find them. If you check your webmaster tools in Google, you will see what I mean. You may have hundreds or maybe even thousands of broken links now when they try to index your site, check the diagnostic reports.

[FoodTVFans]

vbseo does not uninstall elegantly and it is the reason that you are getting all the 404, they have an uninstall "procedure" on their site but it is totally useless. The reason you are getting all the 404 is that the htaccess file is still pointing to all the original "user friendly" URLs that it created the first time around. Reinstalling VBSEO may not be very useful to fixing that problem it the original file index was deleted. The real uninstall procedure isn't pretty and it hoses your search engine indexing so you have to redirect all the broken links in .htaccess so the search engines know where to find them. If you check your webmaster tools in Google, you will see what I mean. You may have hundreds or maybe even thousands of broken links now when they try to index your site, check the diagnostic reports.

Forgot to mention during event 5 (uninstall of VBSEO) vBulletin 3.8.3 was updated.

Is it okay to say clusterf*ck on here?