169 replies to this topic

[zlim]

If two days were lost does that mean the I have to post triple the nonsense today to get up to speed?On a serious note, I did go to Scot's main website and kept seeing the green light for the forum so I sent an email to the webmaster just in case he wasn't aware of the problem. The email bounced. Is there a special email address we should use if we notice a problem?

[LilBambi]

Nice to see the forums back up and running. :tnumbsup:Glad it's only a two day loss. Since the hardware failing caused problems with the backups for those two days, it's quite understandable how that could happen.We can be thankful the intermittent hardware problem failed gloriously before more days of posting were lost.Intermittent electronic problems are the worst!

[elitox]

Scot, on Jan 26 2006, 12:37 PM, said:

Sorry, folks, we did lose two days of data due to a catastrophic hardware failure. My webhost is very apologetic, for whatever it's worth (not much).-- Scot

So that was why i got some old PM's sent to me once again. :PAlso i had to change my signature. :\

[Scot]

zlim, on Jan 26 2006, 08:34 AM, said:

On a serious note, I did go to Scot's main website and kept seeing the green light for the forum so I sent an email to the webmaster just in case he wasn't aware of the problem. The email bounced. Is there a special email address we should use if we notice a problem?

Two-part answer because this is an important two-part comment/question:1. About the green light about forums/web status here:http://www.scotfinnie.com/status.htmTo be honest, I think I should just take this page down. The last thing I'm likely to do is manually update that page when there's some problem on the Forums or my webhost. I'm usually busy trying to squeeze fixing the forums into whatever else it is I'm already doing at that time. Bottom line is this: Scot's Newsletter and Scot's Newsletter Forums are not run by a staff of people on salary. It's me, occasionally Cyndy, and all our generous, kinds, and intelligent Admins and Mods.I put the status Green Light up there at the request of a few forums regulars, but I warned at the time that I couldn't promise that I would remember to change the light. But I think I would remember to do that if there was a 2-day or longer outage. For anything less than 2 days, I'm unlikely to make the change.Given that information, do you think it's better that I remove this "status" page?2. I am not currently prepared to accept email somewhere else concerning the forums or websites. And it's true that Scot's Newsletter, Scots Newsletter Forums, and LinuxClues are all running on the same IPS server that went down. So all my official email addresses are down. (Even worse, this time, I just lost 18 hours of email. Apparently, the email went before the Web server.) However, it is a great idea for me to create a way to do this. Let me think about it and I'll get publish whatever fix I come up with.-- Scot

[striker]

I would say remove the status page, here's why :

Quote

I put the status Green Light up there at the request of a few forums regulars, but I warned at the time that I couldn't promise that I would remember to change the light. But I think I would remember to do that if there was a 2-day or longer outage. For anything less than 2 days, I'm unlikely to make the change.

Obviously it's of no use with short outages. And if the outages are longer, the board throws up a message with the reason why it is down. Ok, this can take a couple of hours, but eventually the message will be there.I saw it a few days ago with the last outage and it clearly stated what was going on, what was being done about it and how much time it would probably take for the forums to be back on. To me it looked very good : I then knew what was going on and just had to be patient. (and you had us informed a few days earlier that some service could take place due to the trouble ticket you issued.)I think that's enough.

[zlim]

Scot, by all means, save yourself more work and headaches - remove the status of the forum page. At first, I thought it might be my computer with the problem. I only emailed when I figured maybe you were not aware there was a problem. I should have known better. The "on top of everything" admins here probably already let you know and that is good enough for me.

[Scot]

One other point that I'll pass along: IPS does a backup every single night. The reason we lost two days of data is that the last two backups were corrupt because of the state of the hardware. IPS tried both sets and then decided it was smarter to go back to the third night's backup. I agreed with that decision.-- Scot

[greengeek]

"I just lost 18 hours of email"I hope for your sake it was all spam!

Edited by greengeek, 27 January 2006 - 10:39 PM.

[Scot]

greengeek, on Jan 27 2006, 08:59 PM, said:

I hope for your sake it was all spam!

Based on the amount of spam I get, 85% of it was!- Scot

[Marsden11]

From 10am PST on until early this early afternoon all I could get was Google adds and nothing else. Interesting how google adds show up but no other php code was displayed...

[Gary]

It works           

[LilBambi]

Same here Marsden11 ... since yesterday couldn't get in.Working fine now, though. Scot is aware of the problem.Some folks were able to get on and others were not. Not sure why. Hopefully Scot will be able to find out what the problem was.

[Scot]

Could anyone who has had problems over this last weekend please post about them? Gary, the way I read your message, you haven't had problems *since* the forums were down for a long time and then came back. Am I wrong about that? Marsden, it sounds like you have had the same problems that LilBambi had over the weekend. I could really use more info from other people. I was in the forums several times over the weekend and had no trouble myself. Now it could be that I just missed the trouble times, though. I would like to file a trouble ticket, but I need to some consensus about it.-- Scot

[LilBambi]

Thanks Scot!Also when you post about whether you were having problems, could you indicate how you connect (broadband, dialup) and whether you are in the US or from another country.Much appreciated!

[Jeber]

Quote

Thanks Scot!Also when you post...

LilBambi, I believe Scot is in the U.S. on broadband.  I hope that helps.     

[LilBambi]

uh, yes, right you are there Jeber ... but I was actually referring to other Highlander responses about it.  

[striker]

Running smooth as silk here.( I thought it was about time to post a positive sounding message here.)

[Gary]

"Scot" said:

Gary, the way I read your message, you haven't had problems *since* the forums were down for a long time and then came back.

Yes the forum has been running great since the outage.

[LilBambi]

Same here! Scot!

[Marsden11]

Many graphics are only showing red x place holders. Many avatars are missing as well including most of the emoticons.So much for a smooth transition...

[greengeek]

That's strange.  Everything's working fine here.

[havnblast]

yea, all been fine here too

[zlim]

It's sporadic because yesterday at times I did not get images and at other times, everything showed perfectly.

[Gary]

It was just down, was that planned?

[LilBambi]

Yes, it was - Scot posted about it this thread:Post Webhost-Transition Glitches