It gets worse. It’s as if they were not ready at all to launch. Or at least not ready to announce.
The website that Zimbabwe’s Registrar General, Tobaiwa Mudede announced just 3 days ago has a new problem. We discovered it just now while making follow-up on the story yesterday (it had a different issue yesterday) to see if things were back to normal. If you attempt to open the website right now, you’ll get the error:
Database connection error (2): Could not connect to MySQL.
You can however still access a cached version of the website stored by Google. And if you are interested in the Zimbabwean passport form – the reason the website is a big deal by the way – you can access it directly on this url: http://www.rg.gov.zw/PassportAppV9.pdf.
We’re not sure where the website is hosted and who the technical people behind it are. Our attempts to contact the RG’s office yesterday failed as their landlines went unanswered. Surely though, there should be more care and deliberate implementation with such projects. This whole episode makes us start wondering (and indeed worrying) about the implementation of other internet related projects by government.
update: now its back to:
503 Service Unavailable
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12 comments
Just had a look at the google cache you put up and it shows that the website is build on Joomla, I have done a quick google search and it seems like a simple fix, any knowledgible admin should be able to fix it. The issue could have have come about while performing a “component” update.Here are the google results:
http://forum.mosets.com/showthread.php?t=19693
http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/joomla-25/database/troubleshooting-database-errors#database-connection-error-2
I would def be able to help out, but I dont think they will be too keen to have outsiders looking into their server 🙂
Most pple welcomed the website. As such I feel obliged to help for free. It’s a simple misconfiguration problem. I can even make the design a lil better. Tell the guys I can help. My contact email is tavonga@cnmarketing.co.za, Linkedin Tavonga Pirimukai.
http://www.prizeless.net For real development @ all levels
Nothing Special there my friend
Not in his head or that of his clients… though I dont know about the name prizeless (shrug)…if it works for him, it works for him
What do u mean nothing special its not meant to be anything but a flag of the services
Why did people welcome this I wonder? If the only thing you can do is download a PDF document and not much else, there’s really no difference from going down to the registrar’s general office filling out the form and leaving it there.
the only prob with this site is that the index is not coming up everything else is fine
Joomla! – Open Source Content Management. Our main objective is to effectively serve
the people of Zimbabwe: Security is paramount.
ooops!
Why not just put it offline, put a splash page apologising and work on it? These things happen, and people who have worked with almost any sort of project would know. Its as though one is viewing an active dev version that has put online.
Could be anyone of the following:
– Unecessary, impatient pressure from ill-informed “managers” to launch before ready. Pushing something that is work-in-progress to premature launch
– Lack of experience/expertise on the tech guys
I tried it just now and managed to get through. M glad they fixed whatever problems they had