Tefka
L Admin
I am so sorry.
Let me start from the beginning.
Last night, we had a driver error. Something I'm no stranger to. It seemed standard procedure, and as I was about to head to bed to sleep for my regular 9-5 job, I wanted to make it fast. The problem was, this wasn't some ancillary error. This was a specific table in our MySQL database - a database that holds the life of this board. If you think excel spreadsheets are neat, if you like numbers, you should see a MySQL database.
The table within the database, "Posts", was erroring out and would not respond to PhPMyAdmin's scripted "auto-repair" button. This always fixes things. This is my noob gun. This is what I do. It seemed standard, but for some reason, wouldn't work.
Well, the whole site was down, so I did further research. The table "posts" was corrupted, and wasn't responding - kept telling me it was unable to connect. Weird. So I researched more. Site's down, it's very late and getting later, and I don't like it being down while I'm at work. So what is going on? Why won't this thing respond?
Well, I read some articles, and got brave. I wanted to end it. Made my backup. Win. Everyone loves backups, and they should always be made.
Didn't think twice about it.
Pressed "Empty Table".
Obliterated the corrupted file.
Attempted to restore file.
"File is corrupted."
"............"
"File is corrupted."
"......................"
Then began my sojourn. Now we are here. Now you're staring at the wasteland that was. A wasteland created because the hosting company had stopped creating automatic backups because of a technicality I was unaware of and had blissfully been ignorant to their refusal to continue to back up a website so large. A wasteland created because I had lazily decided that the safety net that was no longer there was enough to justify me not caring about performing my own backups. A wasteland created because I had ignored my responsibilities these last few months.
Yeah. This was no foreign attack, we weren't hacked, this was all me, and words can't express how sorry I am to you, the member.
Thankfully, my team of Staff members has figured out a way to try and salvage the situation, and will probably be instructing a lot of you on how to do the same. But as for those who haven't heard anything about this yet, we've lost all data in posts back until August 17, 2013. Yes, this includes the entirety of the Dark Harvest event, something that was pretty near and dear to my heart.
I expect continued errors. I expect a lot of unique, individual problems. I expect a lot of complaints, hate mail, etc. I would stick around to try and make up for it, but I am so exhausted from all of this. The Meet the Member voice conference from tonight is post-poned until a later date.
Lastly, I leave you with this: this has been an awakening for me as web administrator, and I'll fight to further ensure the security of this place. Our safety nets will be put back in place. This forum's walls will be put back up. Redundancies, etc. I know you all have ideas, post them, sure. Send me suggestions on Skype, go for it. But in a time like this, please do not take my silence as disrespectful. There's just too much to focus on, and though I'll probably be reading your messages, I just cant' devote time to all of them.
I'm going to start rebuilding what we lost. I hope you'll help me.
Let me start from the beginning.
Last night, we had a driver error. Something I'm no stranger to. It seemed standard procedure, and as I was about to head to bed to sleep for my regular 9-5 job, I wanted to make it fast. The problem was, this wasn't some ancillary error. This was a specific table in our MySQL database - a database that holds the life of this board. If you think excel spreadsheets are neat, if you like numbers, you should see a MySQL database.
The table within the database, "Posts", was erroring out and would not respond to PhPMyAdmin's scripted "auto-repair" button. This always fixes things. This is my noob gun. This is what I do. It seemed standard, but for some reason, wouldn't work.
Well, the whole site was down, so I did further research. The table "posts" was corrupted, and wasn't responding - kept telling me it was unable to connect. Weird. So I researched more. Site's down, it's very late and getting later, and I don't like it being down while I'm at work. So what is going on? Why won't this thing respond?
Well, I read some articles, and got brave. I wanted to end it. Made my backup. Win. Everyone loves backups, and they should always be made.
Didn't think twice about it.
Pressed "Empty Table".
Obliterated the corrupted file.
Attempted to restore file.
"File is corrupted."
"............"
"File is corrupted."
"......................"
Then began my sojourn. Now we are here. Now you're staring at the wasteland that was. A wasteland created because the hosting company had stopped creating automatic backups because of a technicality I was unaware of and had blissfully been ignorant to their refusal to continue to back up a website so large. A wasteland created because I had lazily decided that the safety net that was no longer there was enough to justify me not caring about performing my own backups. A wasteland created because I had ignored my responsibilities these last few months.
Yeah. This was no foreign attack, we weren't hacked, this was all me, and words can't express how sorry I am to you, the member.
Thankfully, my team of Staff members has figured out a way to try and salvage the situation, and will probably be instructing a lot of you on how to do the same. But as for those who haven't heard anything about this yet, we've lost all data in posts back until August 17, 2013. Yes, this includes the entirety of the Dark Harvest event, something that was pretty near and dear to my heart.
I expect continued errors. I expect a lot of unique, individual problems. I expect a lot of complaints, hate mail, etc. I would stick around to try and make up for it, but I am so exhausted from all of this. The Meet the Member voice conference from tonight is post-poned until a later date.
Lastly, I leave you with this: this has been an awakening for me as web administrator, and I'll fight to further ensure the security of this place. Our safety nets will be put back in place. This forum's walls will be put back up. Redundancies, etc. I know you all have ideas, post them, sure. Send me suggestions on Skype, go for it. But in a time like this, please do not take my silence as disrespectful. There's just too much to focus on, and though I'll probably be reading your messages, I just cant' devote time to all of them.
I'm going to start rebuilding what we lost. I hope you'll help me.