Found the Problem

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And it is not good...I have most of the pictures but have lost all of the text...


Ali
Alistair Watters
Post Count: 1504 Msg: #1Added: 2007-08-04 11:27:28
Firstly my apologies to everyone - I know the amount of effort people put into writing, updating and maintaining their blogs.

On the 1st the main server came under severe load - possibly a DoS attack - but unsure - this is beyond my area of expertise. The database crashed. In a desperate effort to get the service up and running again I attempted to repair the tables - the command in a few second removed thousands of rows. Each of these rows corresponded to a blog entry.

I then tried to restore from the latest backup to realize to my horror that I hadn't activated the backup scripts on the new server. I've effectively lost the last 3 months worth of blog entries.

I can not bring them back.

I have a large corrupted database file that refuses to repair without dropping rows - and I have written a script that has inserted the missing entries in a LOST state - visible under "list entries". If anyone is a mysql data recovery specialist - I can supply a download of this data - I have used commercial tools to try and recover the rows but now success.

I have also lost details from some of the recent photos.

Some of the entries from the last week will be restored soon - this will be done automatically.

I can completely understand anger, annoyance and rejection of travelblog as a service. I can only apologise for the neglect in this area. It won't happen again.

I hope you will stay with travelblog - I hope that there will be some way that I can make up for this sorry event.

Travelblog is at a crossroads - it is too big for one person to run, I don't have the expertise in certain areas to do everything - as demonstrated by this incident. I am looking for a serious investor in travelblog - so that these events won't reoccur - and I can concentrate on the areas that I am better at.

Sorry.

Ali Watters - August 4th 2007 - after 3 days trying to restore travelblog properly.


FEEDBACK HERE - this topic is only open to moderators to keep it on track - basically a status report.


Ali
Alistair Watters
Post Count: 1504 Msg: #2Added: 2007-08-05 07:51:50
Current situation: August 5th - TravelBlog.org still not back and running - but the database is restored as much as it can be for now. Very few photos are lost, a new status of LOST has been added for blogs that were affected by the crash.

The main server is now stable - the memory had failed - causing the corruption of the database and the crashes. The memory has been replaced.

In the database there are now:

118,988 - Published Entries.
10,551 - Saved Entries

47,403 - Lost Entries - most have lost the text - the photos will still be there. Not all of these were active published entries - probably 20%!w(MISSING)ere from deleted accounts, another 10%!f(MISSING)rom saved entries.

9,494 - Deleted Entries

Some more of the lost entries will be salvaged from log files - I have to write more scripts to do this - for the moment though it is important to get travelblog.org up and running.

Ali - August 5th 2007 - day 4 of restoration of travelblog.


FEEDBACK HERE - this topic is only open to moderators to keep it on track - basically a status report.




More on the server crash 1st-5th August 2007 - Many, many of the lost blog entries are returning and have returned. Over 20,000 entries have been fixed. This is due to a combination of hard work from many people - see our travel forum for so many examples - a script that has been automatically searching the google cache and restoring entries, and many bloggers fixing their own blogs from backups. Thank you everyone for pulling together, working hard and helping out other travelblog members. Additionally thank you for all the kind words of support, the understanding shown and the loyalty shown to travelblog.org - it's what makes this site so special! - Ali (10th August)

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Comments

[mom]

better than me
Well you need a good computer expert like I have. YOU for me but you will have to go beyond my realm of knowledge. I don't have anything in my little book you are writing for me about lost blogs. Ha