Vanadrin Failing Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 Our forums recently suffered an unknown issue which rendered them nearly impossible to navigate. They are currently off limits to all but those with administrative access until such time that a restoration can take place. In the meantime, please contact me here via PM or this thread if there are any matters which need urgent attention. Any ambassadorial requests may also be made via PM or Embassy post on your 'home soil'. We apologise for this momentary setback. All of the information contained within our forums were archived shortly before things because unnavigable, so there should be minimal data loss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poobah Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 Good luck sorting this out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickyman1984 Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 It's always unfortunate when something like this happens. Good luck, I hope everything is up and running again shortly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanadrin Failing Posted February 12, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 (edited) I wish I could even say that I knew what the problem was. I'd delete a forum in one corner of the boards and something apparently unrelated would disappear. I'd make a forum elsewhere and it appeared in another area entirely. It was like I was trying to walk in a straight line through a tesseract. Edited February 12, 2009 by Vanadrin Failing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bzelger Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 Good luck. I hope it works out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uralica Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 Hope you guys get the forum back up soon. I don't know where I'd be without my football banter o/ WAPA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanadrin Failing Posted February 12, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 Drop by our IRC channel! #CNWAPA on Coldfront is likely to be more active without any board chatter. ^^; Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pezstar Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 Good luck, Vanadrin! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tamerlane Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 (edited) A communications disruption can only mean one thing, invasion. Edited February 12, 2009 by tamerlane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Londo Mollari Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 A communications disruption can only mean one thing, invasion. :sweI: :P lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruggerdawg Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 Having just been in a similar situation with our own forums, I sympathize with you. Good luck in getting things restored quickly. Also, a note to everyone: BACKUPS, ftw!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barkeaters Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 This sounds really familiar. We sympathize with your pain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscher Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 Sad thing, vote for Impman!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haven for Peace Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 I hope the forums will be up soon, and that yall don't have to create a temporary forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanadrin Failing Posted February 12, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 (edited) Unfortunately, It may come to that. Though I hate to delete data, this problem just won't go away. Without knowing what caused it in the first place, we are running out of options and may need to restart from scratch. I blame this all on Scumdee. I'm hoping we can preserve the existing boards as an Archive, but things are looking a bit grim. :/ We'll keep you all posted, of course. If it DOES come down to a new forum, we'll need to get Ambassadors to re-establish embassies. UPDATE: Broon amputated a few huge chunks of our boards to try to get rid of the disease, and it seems to be behaving for now. We're going to give it a week, and if the problem rears its head again, we'll get to work on replacement boards. UPDATE 2: It's a loss. We're gonna try to recover at least our election results (Yeah... This died in the middle of our Council Elections. ), but a new board's going up as we speak. Edited February 12, 2009 by Vanadrin Failing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drai Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 Good thing the majority of the data was archived. Hope you get this sorted out quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BacTalan Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 (edited) Unfortunately, It may come to that.Though I hate to delete data, this problem just won't go away. Without knowing what caused it in the first place, we are running out of options and may need to restart from scratch. I'm hoping we can preserve the existing boards as an Archive, but things are looking a bit grim. :/ We'll keep you all posted, of course. If it DOES come down to a new forum, we'll need to get Ambassadors to re-establish embassies. UPDATE: Broon amputated a few huge chunks of our boards to try to get rid of the disease, and it seems to be behaving for now. We're going to give it a week, and if the problem rears its head again, we'll get to work on replacement boards. UPDATE 2: It's a loss. We're gonna try to recover at least our election results (Yeah... This died in the middle of our Council Elections. ), but a new board's going up as we speak. I'd offer to look at it for you, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want me looking at all your data.. Edited February 12, 2009 by BacTalan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanadrin Failing Posted February 13, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2009 I'd offer to look at it for you, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want me looking at all your data.. Thanks for the offer, BacTalan. It's appreciated. OK, we've got ourselves to the point where we can start to conduct business on our boards again. Rebuilding will be a gradual process of course, but folks are welcome to drop by and get things running again as they will. ^^d As before, we're at http://www.wearepertharmy.co.uk/phpbb3/ . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bros Posted February 13, 2009 Report Share Posted February 13, 2009 What happened before the downtime? Any odd activity on your forums? Do you still have your database up (the old one or whatever)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanadrin Failing Posted February 13, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2009 On Saturday or Sunday, our host decided that they'd be proactive for the first time in recent memory: They decided to shut down service THEN instead of waiting for a payment by the end of the month as they should. I wasn't on the boards much immediately after they came back from that downtime, but they were acting strange by the time I did less than a day later. From the way it's acting, it felt like the forum ID numbers had corrupted somehow, but Broon was unable to repair the damage. We DO still have the old DB, but it's an archive made AFTER things started to mess up. The next most recent backup was Dec 22nd and that had its own special problems when we tried going with that. Broon learned his lesson about more frequent backups, I assure you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bros Posted February 13, 2009 Report Share Posted February 13, 2009 On Saturday or Sunday, our host decided that they'd be proactive for the first time in recent memory: They decided to shut down service THEN instead of waiting for a payment by the end of the month as they should.I wasn't on the boards much immediately after they came back from that downtime, but they were acting strange by the time I did less than a day later. From the way it's acting, it felt like the forum ID numbers had corrupted somehow, but Broon was unable to repair the damage. We DO still have the old DB, but it's an archive made AFTER things started to mess up. The next most recent backup was Dec 22nd and that had its own special problems when we tried going with that. Broon learned his lesson about more frequent backups, I assure you. What happened? Did you determine if it was a file or database problem? You try to repair the database? Did you try running the database on a clean install of a forum? I can try to help you guys tomorrow if you like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanadrin Failing Posted February 13, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2009 (edited) What happened? Basically whenever we'd delete one forum, another seemingly unrealted one would shift or disappear. For example, when I was trying to move some things around in our Ministry of Economics area, our Foreign Affairs section got relocated to the Spam forum. Like I said. CRAZY. Did you determine if it was a file or database problem? You try to repair the database?Did you try running the database on a clean install of a forum? I can try to help you guys tomorrow if you like. Talk to Broon on those details. I'm sure he'd welcome any help in trying to recover the old info. We just had to get SOMETHING up and running in the meantime. Edited February 13, 2009 by Vanadrin Failing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bros Posted February 13, 2009 Report Share Posted February 13, 2009 Basically whenever we'd delete one forum, another seemingly unrealted one would shift or disappear. For example, when I was trying to move some things around in our Ministry of Economics area, our Foreign Affairs section got relocated to the Spam forum.Like I said. CRAZY. Talk to Broon on those details. I'm sure he'd welcome any help in trying to recover the old info. We just had to get SOMETHING up and running in the meantime. Why were you deleting forums? Also, sounds like it might be something with the database and how it was reading board IDs. I could try a few things to recover the data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broon Posted February 13, 2009 Report Share Posted February 13, 2009 The left and right tree's in the forums table were totally screwed up. I ran a repair on the database and it appeard to fix it. However, after that the same thing started happening again but much worse. I now think it was bug/virus. My last backup was 6 weeks old - so I'm now kicking myself because I know better. I just became complacent. I noticed a problem about a week ago when a few forums 'disappeared'. It was in my hunt for these forums that I discoverd the strange behaviour. I think it basically got the forum ID's mixed up in a lookup table and the problem propgated whenever you changed a forums parent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bros Posted February 13, 2009 Report Share Posted February 13, 2009 The left and right tree's in the forums table were totally screwed up. I ran a repair on the database and it appeard to fix it. However, after that the same thing started happening again but much worse. I now think it was bug/virus. My last backup was 6 weeks old - so I'm now kicking myself because I know better. I just became complacent. I noticed a problem about a week ago when a few forums 'disappeared'. It was in my hunt for these forums that I discoverd the strange behaviour. I think it basically got the forum ID's mixed up in a lookup table and the problem propgated whenever you changed a forums parent. I have a few ideas. Wanna discuss on IRC? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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