I recently discovered something unsettling: the TIWATS source code was nowhere to be found on my laptop.
TIWATS—Things I Want At The Store—was still alive and working at tiwats.com, but I could not find the files that created it.
That is not a comfortable feeling.
A working website with no local source code is like having a house you can visit but no longer having the key to the workshop where it was built.
Fortunately, I had ChatGPT beside me, and what followed became a very successful rescue operation.
At first, we searched my available files and found an older TIWATS development copy. That was encouraging, but it might not have matched the live site. The real goal was to recover the exact version running on the server.
My usual WinSCP connection opened directly into the BluSup folder. I searched there for TIWATS, but nothing appeared. We checked the root files, including index.php and .htaccess, but there was no TIWATS routing code.
Then we traced both domains.
blusup.com and tiwats.com resolved to the same server, which told us TIWATS was probably somewhere in the same IONOS hosting account—but not inside the BluSup directory.
The breakthrough came inside the IONOS domain settings:
blusup.com → /blusup
tiwats.com → /tiwats
There it was.
TIWATS had its own webspace folder, sitting beside BluSup rather than inside it.
My existing SFTP account was restricted to /blusup, which explained why I could not see /tiwats. We carefully created a second SFTP user assigned only to the TIWATS directory.
That was important: we did not alter, replace, or risk my working BluSup connection.
I then created a separate WinSCP session named TIWATS.
When it opened, the missing files were waiting for us:
index.php
.htaccess
Success.
The first thing I did was download the entire live TIWATS folder to my laptop and create a backup. Only after the live source was safely recovered did we make any changes.
ChatGPT reviewed the real index.php, confirmed that it was newer than the older development copy, and prepared a small patch. The wording was improved so TIWATS now says that information is saved on the user’s device, rather than assuming it is always a phone.
We also added this helpful suggestion:
For faster access, add TIWATS to your phone’s Home Screen.
After uploading the revised file, we discovered one final problem: a few apostrophes and dashes had been damaged by text encoding.
That was corrected with one more careful patch.
The final result was exactly what we wanted:
The live TIWATS source code was recovered.
The original site was backed up.
The BluSup connection remained untouched.
A separate TIWATS SFTP connection was created.
The wording was improved.
The encoding was repaired.
The site remained online throughout the process.
TIWATS is now safely back on my laptop, properly backed up, and ready for future development.
What began as:
“It looks like I don’t have the TIWATS source code.”
ended with:
A very successful rescue operation.
And yes indeed—it was.
Peace, Power, Purpose and Pride.
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