The recent forum troubles
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 6:06 am
In short, the VPS suddenly went down ~11:30AM local time without properly saving the database files, courtesy of 1and1 tech support installing updates. Unfortunately, this resulted in a crucial file - the list of topics - going missing.
Complicating the situation, automated backups were discovered to only be pseudo-automated in that since configuring it, only 1 backup happened (on Jun 4th).
We could have immediately restored the backups, but that would have resulted in the loss of ~1.5 months worth of posts. So the forums were kept down a little longer to rebuild the list of topics from the posts (which were thankfully uncorrupted).
So, what does this mean? Well, for most of you, absolutely nothing. The only noticeable effect is that the number of posts in a topic [i]might[/i] be off. Also, the viewcounts are [i]definitely[/i] off. Other than that, it should be fine. That said, if you notice any problems, please raise them.
As for the server, for one, daily backups are being done. And this time, we're going to [i]check[/i] that the backups were successfully created. And that they can be restored from.
Also, the possibility of uploading the backups to a remote server (in case the VPS goes down completely and doesn't come back up) is being looked into.
Complicating the situation, automated backups were discovered to only be pseudo-automated in that since configuring it, only 1 backup happened (on Jun 4th).
We could have immediately restored the backups, but that would have resulted in the loss of ~1.5 months worth of posts. So the forums were kept down a little longer to rebuild the list of topics from the posts (which were thankfully uncorrupted).
So, what does this mean? Well, for most of you, absolutely nothing. The only noticeable effect is that the number of posts in a topic [i]might[/i] be off. Also, the viewcounts are [i]definitely[/i] off. Other than that, it should be fine. That said, if you notice any problems, please raise them.
As for the server, for one, daily backups are being done. And this time, we're going to [i]check[/i] that the backups were successfully created. And that they can be restored from.
Also, the possibility of uploading the backups to a remote server (in case the VPS goes down completely and doesn't come back up) is being looked into.