What were the symptoms?? (before you tried to restore the db and re-upload the older backup)

In the current version of 4.0.3, the backup creates a maintenance.html file in the conf directory which prevents access to the installation until the backup is complete. When the backup is complete the maintenance.html is removed.

If PHP would happen to die (say run out of memory) during that back up... the maintenance.html file is NOT removed and must be manually deleted before access is restored.

I don't know if this is related at all to what happened to you, but I believe it's been fixed in the CVS version.

http://forums.b2evolution.net/viewtopic.php?t=21998

Check php errors log or let it display errors. Also try to remove the file /conf/maintenance.html

thank you guys both.it was exactly that.if it werent for you i would keep looking for days.

i just removed the _maintenance.html and maintenance.html and it was fine again.

well that was scary, i should know better than to try 'new' features. i too am glad this post was here, it was driving me crazy trying to figure out what to do once the backup died (which i still don't understand why). i think everything is working now. thanks for offering this great software.