As promised: the current state of affairs. Still not solved, unfortunately.
Actually, I had two problems:
1) I wasn't able to access the administration part of the website (Sorry, I use a Dutch interface, so probably the terminology isn't quite correct); my user account didn't exist.
2) My website was invisible: I got a 'redirection' message from Firefox. Since this website was still in the development phase, settings were such that the website was only visible to the super user. I hoped that when problem 1 was solved, problem 2 would be solved as well. No such luck, unfortunately.
What have I done?
I followed the instructions in
http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_recov ... assword%3F to change my password. The password in the SQL table was ridiculously long (+100 characters), so I'm afraid the website was hacked. Maybe free hosting sites are more vulnerable to hacking? Anyway, changing the password to a password of my choice did not help. Changing the password to one of the mentioned recovery passwords did help: I was able to access the back end of my website again. As recommended, I changed my password immediately. When I returned to the SQL database, the password seemed to be hacked again: it was a different code than the code of the recovery password.
I also made the website accessible to the public, but it stayed invisible (redirecting message).
Then I looked for tips regarding the redirecting issue. What I've tried:
- Components > redirecting >
I got the message that the redirecting plugin was disabled, so I took a look in plugin management. I found that several plugins were disabled, such as gmail authenticication, LDAP authenticication, redirecting system. I activated those three.
Still, the website remained inaccessible.
Next step:
Components > redirecting > 'verlopen URLs' (they were disabled)
I saw two items: a red circle with nothing behind it (symbolising the normal URL, I suppose?) and a red circle with the suffix index.php. I set both of them to 'enabled'.
Still, the website was inaccessible.
Then I filled in the field 'destination URL' in the text box below. I filled in the default URL of my website.
Now the website was redirected to the website of my free hosting partner.
Any suggestions on how to fix this? I should be presenting this website before class in 2 hours time.