So, about the downtime

[General Ray]

I'm not very active here; as a matter of fact I just kinda wondered here today. Sorry to hear the news. Hope everything picks back up.

[Rising_Dusk]

Originally Posted by 2-P

It was snowing and the site was down, felt like Christmas.

This is pretty much how I felt, haha. Either way, this sucks, but all is well because people still visit this site somehow, in some way, regardless of life happenings.

[TKF]

So no chance of recovering the files on the dead hd? Hmmm prolly not since servers might be rented on someplace else right??

[Kyrbi0]

~~
So hey, had a more recent down-time (just this morning, ~11am at GMT -4), and now I can't find most of my PMs and a buncha recently-updated threads. Another loss? :<

[deolrin]

The last post is from 19\2 in this thread.

...

:(

[Anitarf]

Originally Posted by Vexorian

It seems that until a year ago backups happened weekly, but it stopped happening. We were promised this won't happen again,

And yet, apparently, now that the site has crashed again less than a year later we have no more recent backups than the one made two days after the last crash?

[Vexorian]

I don't really know, they were having issues migrating the database servers (hence the error messages) and that's the last thing I heard of Tim.

If they can't restore a newer backup than that then that's enough. I will tell Tim to sell the site or something. If they can't do something as simple as programming a weekly backup or at least a monthly or even tri-monthly backup they just don't care. It is amazing enough the site is still alive, having a db server with yearly amnesia is not helping..

[deolrin]

Please don't do anything crazy like that. :(
At least merge with the Hive and get all of the resources and posts on there. Better yet, find a way to fix this. :(

[Vexorian]

I'd rather the site is given a proper burial than merged with the hive.

The way to fix it would be to make Tim's host to do frequent backups but apparently they don't care enough to do them.

Edit: I guess the other solution is for me to do the backups myself. It seems it is possible. I wish I thought of this before.

[Vexorian]

Apparently what happened is some sort of major failure that destroyed even the server that had the db backups.

From now on I'll take my own weekly backups of the db and save them away of the site.

[Kyrbi0]

Originally Posted by Vexorian

I don't really know, they were having issues migrating the database servers (hence the error messages) and that's the last thing I heard of Tim.

If they can't restore a newer backup than that then that's enough. I will tell Tim to sell the site or something. If they can't do something as simple as programming a weekly backup or at least a monthly or even tri-monthly backup they just don't care. It is amazing enough the site is still alive, having a db server with yearly amnesia is not helping..

While I agree with the problem, I feel the solution would be unbearable.

Originally Posted by Vexorian

I'd rather the site is given a proper burial than merged with the hive.

The way to fix it would be to make Tim's host to do frequent backups but apparently they don't care enough to do them.

Again, I have generally respected the notion of maintaining independence & distinction from The Hive Workshop, I have to say that the loss of all this quality would be beyond contemplation (I mean, where else would all of the maps, resources, code, tutorials, etc; go? Threads?)

Originally Posted by Vexorian

Edit: I guess the other solution is for me to do the backups myself. It seems it is possible. I wish I thought of this before.

:<

Didn't know that was an option; sounds like a lot of (work/space/etc?), but if you consider it doable, then... By all means. :<

Originally Posted by Vexorian

Apparently what happened is some sort of major failure that destroyed even the server that had the db backups.

From now on I'll take my own weekly backups of the db and save them away of the site.

</3
Holy cow, that stinks. So I take it the Pastebin is a lost cause? x/ Also Anitarf, I'm attempting to use Wayback Machine or the Google Webcache, but I'm not finding a whole lot past mid-February (ironically, one post after you initially introduced me to the Webcache).

Well, at least we can take consolation in that. Thank you, Vexorian, for being willing to still stick around & keep things up.

[Vexorian]

Since a while ago we stopped saving attachments in the db.

The attachments are saved in the file system. Which, unlike the db has the a much more recent backup.

So my db backups would contain only the db stuff, which is not that big in regards of space.

Speaking of which, if you have any important attachment that is missing, I can possibly find all attachments by an user after the backup date.

[Kyrbi0]

Originally Posted by Vexorian

Since a while ago we stopped saving attachments in the db.

The attachments are saved in the file system. Which, unlike the db has the a much more recent backup.

So my db backups would contain only the db stuff, which is not that big in regards of space.

Speaking of which, if you have any important attachment that is missing, I can possibly find all attachments by an user after the backup date.

I'll be the first to admit ignorance; what is the "db", and by "attachments" you mean primarily/only physical objects attached to posts (i.e. maps, pictures, models, etc)?

If so, I suppose I don't require much of you, then; I never really had much uploaded. :< Just written/ideas. But, if it's not too difficult, I wouldn't mind you checking.

[Anitarf]

My guess is that "db" is short for the forum database. So, just the forums, themes, users, threads and posts. With a hundred thousand threads, that's still a lot of data, though. Will you be downloading the whole database each week or is there a way to just get all the changes since the last backup?

[2-P]

Thanks Vex.