- Joined
- Feb 19, 2001
- Messages
- 34,872
- Purraise
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Here it is in Anne's words taken from her daily Blog:
It all started with a minor upgrade that our admin suggested. It was meant to improve the speed of the forums and make them less susceptible to hackers. The estimation was zero downtime for the upgrade. So we went ahead with it.
Next thing we know, the forums are down. The upgrade was taking up more resources than originally anticipated. So, we waited for our good old server to pull through. Well, basically it didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t. It crashed during the process, corrupting our huge database.
This is when the red lights began to flicker and the siren went on… Now we had a crisis on our hands.
Let me try and explain a bit more on the technical aspects of this database. We are talking about a single file, which basically holds everything - all of the information in the forums since they were established four years ago. Every single post, member profile and PM. Itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s all there in this huge huge file. This file also contains the information telling the application how to build the database, which bit is a post and which is a user title etc. Itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s all in this one huge file. That file got screwed up…
So, now we had to resort to our backups. Yes, we do have a backup done every two days. Itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s an automatic procedure and the backup copy is kept on another machine. This is where things got even more complicated. For some unknown reason, our latest backup copy was also corrupt. It generated error messages and wouldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t just get uploaded into the forums skeleton as it was supposed to.
So now our admin had to take that backup copy, download it into his computer and open up the database in there. Then go through the database, table by table, and see what went wrong. A very long process…
So far, we have a working copy which is an older version of the forums. Uploading it would mean we would go back in time to an older copy of the forums. Many posts will be lost. Some members profiles will be lost as well
Not very good….
Our admin plans on trying to take the newer version of the forums (the one that is corrupt) and try to retrieve some of the newer information and put it back into the forums. This would have to be done manually. A painstakingly long process, that would not bring back all of the information.
Right now – this is where we stand now –
We are going to start by getting an older version of the forums to work. Just so we have some sort of working version. Then we need to decide between these two options –
a. open up again with an older version.
b. wait until our admin tries to “pour in†some of the more recent information into this version.
We will do our best to keep everyone updated here. Please do post all your questions here - I will make an update feed later today with a sort of mini FAQ trying to answer everyoneâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s questions.
Again, thank you all so much for your patience
It all started with a minor upgrade that our admin suggested. It was meant to improve the speed of the forums and make them less susceptible to hackers. The estimation was zero downtime for the upgrade. So we went ahead with it.
Next thing we know, the forums are down. The upgrade was taking up more resources than originally anticipated. So, we waited for our good old server to pull through. Well, basically it didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t. It crashed during the process, corrupting our huge database.
This is when the red lights began to flicker and the siren went on… Now we had a crisis on our hands.
Let me try and explain a bit more on the technical aspects of this database. We are talking about a single file, which basically holds everything - all of the information in the forums since they were established four years ago. Every single post, member profile and PM. Itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s all there in this huge huge file. This file also contains the information telling the application how to build the database, which bit is a post and which is a user title etc. Itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s all in this one huge file. That file got screwed up…
So, now we had to resort to our backups. Yes, we do have a backup done every two days. Itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s an automatic procedure and the backup copy is kept on another machine. This is where things got even more complicated. For some unknown reason, our latest backup copy was also corrupt. It generated error messages and wouldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t just get uploaded into the forums skeleton as it was supposed to.
So now our admin had to take that backup copy, download it into his computer and open up the database in there. Then go through the database, table by table, and see what went wrong. A very long process…
So far, we have a working copy which is an older version of the forums. Uploading it would mean we would go back in time to an older copy of the forums. Many posts will be lost. Some members profiles will be lost as well
Our admin plans on trying to take the newer version of the forums (the one that is corrupt) and try to retrieve some of the newer information and put it back into the forums. This would have to be done manually. A painstakingly long process, that would not bring back all of the information.
Right now – this is where we stand now –
We are going to start by getting an older version of the forums to work. Just so we have some sort of working version. Then we need to decide between these two options –
a. open up again with an older version.
b. wait until our admin tries to “pour in†some of the more recent information into this version.
We will do our best to keep everyone updated here. Please do post all your questions here - I will make an update feed later today with a sort of mini FAQ trying to answer everyoneâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s questions.
Again, thank you all so much for your patience
