Forum Woes

[administrator]

Hopefully the withdrawal pains haven't been too bad :)

IMPORTANT ADVICE:
Please don't spend a lot of time creating long posts until next week after we get things truly fixed up. If you want to write a long post, please consider writing it on your PC in a word processor, saving the file, then cut-n-paste into the forums. There is a good chance the server will go down again between now and next Monday!

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We have a hard drive failing on the server, and the database has quite a few bits of corrupted data. I've managed to recover some but not all of the "invalid" PMs. If it was recoverable, the sender should see it in their "sent PMs" box. You'll probably have to cut-n-paste and re-send it though, since the ID#s for a few hundred PMs got garbled.

I've looked through the posts and haven't seen any garbled or missing posts, but the database reported several hundred "missing" rows in the posts table, so I'm guessing that a fair number of posts have gone missing.

I could've restored from backup, but the most recent valid backup was on the 15th and we would have lost all posts between then and now, so I figured it is better to have a few random old posts gone than to have all the new ones deleted...

The server still needs a new hard drive but it is housed at a "colocation" facility and I won't be able to replace the drive until this weekend.

Thanks for your patience!

- Jeff

[KnottedYet]

the withdrawl has been TERRIBLE!!!! Oh, the anguish!!

(was that short enough?):D

[snapdragen]

**uncurls from fetal position**

I wuz goin' through withdrawls........:o

[kelownagirl]

me too..... I kept coming back and checking, and checking and checking....

[Running Mommy]

so it wasn't just me!! :D I couldn't imagine a day without my friends at TE!

[salsabike]

I emailed Mimitabby at home and said "HEY..."

Addiction lives here on TE.

Thanks for the hard work, Jeff!

[Sky]

I'm glad TE is back!

Thanks, Jeff!!!

[han-grrl]

we all appreciate your efforts!

[pooks]

I emailed Mimi, too! LOL

Whew. Glad to see it back. Looking forward to it coming back STRONG next week!

[KnottedYet]

Yay, Jeff!!! :D :p :D

[SadieKate]

Oh, Jeff. I hope your weekend isn't completely ruined. A colocation facility sounds a bit too urological in nature to me.:eek: :p

We'll survive (barely) without TE for short periods. Thanks.

[Ninabike]

Yes Jeff. Thanks for the hard work. Must have TE "fix" daily.

[administrator]

I thought I had them fixed last night but it turns out not. I've made a few more tweaks and I think they are working now.

To reiterate earlier advice, if you've sent someone a PM in the past 24 hours, they probably did not receive it, since the ID#s in the links in the "you have a PM" emails are incorrect (thus the "invalid" message when clicking on the link).

However, it is *most likely* still in your "sent items" folder of your PMs, and you can click into the message and then forward it on (or cut-n-paste into a new message) to resend.

[Trek420]

Yay, Jeff!

[Xrayted]

Thanks Jeff! I actually had gotten a text message about it too. :o hehe. We are a faithful bunch, aren't we?

[crazycanuck]

Thanks Jeff :)

What would we do without TE :eek: *bikes off & away*

C

[colby]

Oh, Jeff. I hope your weekend isn't completely ruined. A colocation facility sounds a bit too urological in nature to me.:eek: :p

Wow. I will never think of a colocation facility the same way again. :D

[SadieKate]

That is one word in desperate need of a hyphen.

[mimitabby]

hey, anyone else notice that the :cool: smiley face isn't in the same place on the smiley face table??

[roguedog]

Hey Jeff, hope the migration went well... I feel ya...Been there done that.

[mary9761]

I'm so glad to see TE back up this evening. I kept checking back for the last 24 hours and was fiending something terrible :eek:

[Mr. Bloom]

:eek: :eek: fiending:eek: :eek:

[KnottedYet]

You don't know how many times I was tempted to post a "Team Estrogen" thread on BikeJournal, just to get a fix! I needed my peeps, y'all!:D

THANK YOU, JEFF!!! :D :D

[roguedog]

saw this and was bummed (from before the weekend) but similar feelings when i saw the "TE wil be back tomorrow" signage..

[mary9761]

You don't know how many times I was tempted to post a "Team Estrogen" thread on BikeJournal, just to get a fix! I needed my peeps, y'all!:D

THANK YOU, JEFF!!! :D :D

LOL, So I wasn't alone in my thought to do exactly the same LOL...:D :D :p

[mary9761]

I had similar pages come up like that too Rogue, THAT was indeed Scary!:eek: :eek:

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Even aside from all the wonderful emotionally supportive stuff on here, this is the single largest collection of practical experience and wisdom for women cyclists on the whole internet! I do hope the site owners make sure that a copy of the archives are kept safe somewhere and occasionally updated, so that all this incredible trove of information has no chance of ever accidentally being completely ERASED! :eek: :eek: :eek:

[administrator]

Hi Lisa,

We have regular backups to an external HD (daily and weekly in 2 day and 2 week rotation sets, with occasional additional manual backups taken offsite), but due to the way that the database corruption "snuck up" on us (it occurred gradually over a number of weeks, rather than as a sudden and complete failure), the corrupt data was present to various extents in all of the backups in the regular rotation.

While it may be possible to "merge" the various datasets to get some data back, there have been upgrades to the software between some of them resulting in slightly different db schemas. Because of the large number of man hours that would be required to attempt such a recovery, and because it is certain we still wouldn't get 100% of the data back, we're forced to live with some data loss of both posts and user accounts.

As a result of this event, we are increasing the backup schedule dramatically, to a 7 day daily rotation, a 4 week weekly rotation, and a 3 month monthly rotation. This still won't guarantee no future data loss (that would require more than one server and a different database technology), but it will mean a good backup should be "closer" than several months back in time.

[ShubieGA]

Thanks for the hard work and updates Jeff!
The joys of the techie life - periods of quiet bliss, followed by "mach two with your hair on fire" troubleshooting! ;)

[snapdragen]

Thanks for the hard work and updates Jeff!
The joys of the techie life - periods of quiet bliss, followed by "mach two with your hair on fire" troubleshooting! ;)

Ditto Jeff! Been there, done that too.


//must remember..."mach two with your hair on fire" :D