Notice:
The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.
Looking at the sub-forums, it appears the threads from about mid June to now are missing. Even searching for some threads that I know I participated in, do not show up.
Davy J
2005 Gemini 105Mc PO 1987 C25 #5509 SR/SK Tampa Bay
Apparently everything from mid-June to today is gone.
Dave Bristle Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired), Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge
Dave Bristle Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired), Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge
There were some issues with the forum migration to new equipment and with the data backup by our website hosting company. Posts from June 17 to October 6 are permanently gone. Everything else is still there. To see the most recent previous topics, change the dropbox at the bottom of the list from "the last 30 days" to a longer time frame.
On Tuesday, Oct-6 the forum crashed. While the website itself was available, the forum application could not connect to the database. Meaning, the forum was down and users received an error messages when trying to access the forum.
After working with the website hosting company, there has been an unrecoverable data loss. All forum data from Jun-17 to Oct-6 has been permanently lost.
The information that we generate in this forum is of value to future boatowners, and losing it amounts to the forum having been non-existent during that black-out. At the very least, the hosting service should credit the Association with the fees charged during that period of time. It equates to nearly 30% of a year's worth of this forum's primary expense.
The trouble with a destination - any destination, really - is that it interrupts The Journey.
Lee Panza SR/SK #2134 San Francisco Bay (Brisbane, CA)
Not for nothing, how large is the database? Im guessing with photos and some 20@+ years of archives it would far exceed the 2GB I get for free from Google or MS Office.
We have weekly backups of the forum database. The problem is, every week the website company was backing up the same file from Jun-17. There are several copies of the Jun-17 database file.
The notice we received: The website was moving to a new server. There is a new website admin tool call "Plesk". There is nothing needed on your part to complete the migration.
What was not in the notice. Moving the website also means copying the database to a new server. They didn't communicate there was two copies of the database running at the same time. They didn't communicate we needed to manually disconnect from the old database server and connect to the new database server. They didn't communicate they were shutting down the old database server.
It is standard practice to keep websites and databases on separate servers. That was the configuration before and the configuration now. The notice only mentions the website and there is no mention of the database.
Next, it is common to connect to a database by either the server name or IP address. We are using the server name. In the Plesk tool, it only displays the IP address. When "moving" a database to a new server, IT "usually" updates the server name to point to the new IP address. This is a database alias, which they didn't update or communicate they were not going to update.
I've been through many IT projects in my career, but this company didn't follow standard practices. Examples: When two copies of the same database are running, check if anyone is connected to the old database. Update the database alias to the new IP address. Before shutting down a database, make it unavailable. Change the connection string, change the database name, change the password, anyone one of those will do. Before unplugging a server, stop the services. In this case stop the MySQL database service. Once you follow any of those steps, you let the machine run for a few days. In our case, 3-months. The website company didn't do any of those things. They copied the database to a new server in June, they didn't check anything, they shutdown and unplugged the machine on the same day.
Using the Plesk admin tool: You could see the database backups, it was not clear this was the database copy from Jun-17. You could see the database was running, it was not clear this was the database copy from Jun-17. You could run queries and see forum data, it was not clear this was data from Jun-17.
In hindsight, had we spent more time using the Plesk admin tool, we could have run queries to see the most recent forum post or see the most recent forum user. Then determine new data was not being added to the new database (had we known there was a new database). Since the forum was running well, this about of troubleshooting was not considered.
Thank you for your comments. I'm going through the 5-stages of grief. I may be upset, but not at you or the forum users. Thank you for your understanding.
Russ Johnson, Commodore 2009-2024 (commodore at catalina-capri-25s.org)
As I said in my post on the other thread (paraphrasing), were all still here and we can re-post the important topics if we like.
I just need some help recalling all the topics: Dreaded turning ball Raising a boat off the trailer without a travel lift Long haul trailering across the country Replacing the head Adding hand holds to the cabin New interior cushions from Catalina Yachts Outboard motor sound and spark plug failure Lake Lanier windstorm Extending the settee to allow for more comfortable sleep Rewiring the mast connector on the cabintop. To name a few ...
If others had their favorites, please add to the list.
Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ. The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.