NEWS -- Recent downtime, data loss, etc.
#21
QUOTE (Skye Collins @ Aug 6 2012, 09:41 AM)
Also - everyone, if you had a thread that was started before or on August 2nd, it may be able to be saved. Please see this thread: http://soulsrpg.com/ipb/viewtopic.php?t=29982 [/quote]
Please, everyone, look at this. <3

Anyway... I'm not sure how much I'd realistically be able to donate. :c I know that many of us are college students and are having financial issues, but if others really are willing to pick up the slack, it might not be as much of an issue. I just feel bad for those who would need to contribute more than their worth. :/
#22
I'll donate what I can. More than five dollars for sure and perhaps I can even buy some cool stuff XD.

Thank you SA for all your hard work, and thanks Sunny. I managed to retrieve one post from your method, and with the giant list of posts I need to recreate that is a huge deal.
#23
While I am bummed about the post loss (Brb while I feel over an entire Roclipse thread gone.), I am literally spewing lava in relief that nothing from the RP Guide and Wiki was lost. Its like, do you know how much infomation would have been lost?

Just think. I would have probably crawled into a hole and never return if everything that I made on the Wiki from the 2nd onward poofed. xD
#24
QUOTE (Alyssum de Fonte @ Aug 6 2012, 10:11 AM)
While I am bummed about the post loss (Brb while I feel over an entire Roclipse thread gone.), I am literally spewing lava in relief that nothing from the RP Guide and Wiki was lost. Its like, do you know how much infomation would have been lost?

Just think. I would have probably crawled into a hole and never return if everything that I made on the Wiki from the 2nd onward poofed. xD [/quote]
God, I'm just happy that there was a backup made so recently. We're extremely lucky that we're only scrambling to fill in the gap with three days' worth of posts missing rather than a month or more. :c It could have been absolutely devastating.

I think I'm more relieved about this than frustrated. Even if I'll drag my feet fixing what needs fixed, I'm just glad it isn't worse. x___x
#25
Thankfully (kind of), I've been unable to post for like, a week and a half, so this hasn't affected me at all.

I'd be more than willing to donate a chunk of change to move over to a private server.

Also, it keeps saying "DNS lookup failed" to me. I'm in chrome, I don't know if it's a site-wide thing or just my internet c:
#26
Thanks for doing everything you can SA! This stinks, but we'll get through it!
#27
I guess I'm one of the lucky few, 1 post lost, 1 post reconstructed. I still had the thread open on tab after posting it the first time.


There is no talk, only do: Donation complete.


As to the DNS lookup thing, try clearing dns info, cache and stuffs from your browser.
#28
I fricken love Lazarus right now. *cuddles all the saved stuff*
#29
Id donate so this never happens to us again I lost 14 posts and I'm going to cry
#30
Yeah, I'm jsut glad theres an OOC note rule Big Grin made it so much easier for me <3
#31
Whoa! Thankfully I don't think I lost anything since I've been so sucky lately, but I will definitely donate on payday to help ensure that this won't happen again.

Nobody should abuse our poor server! Tongue

<3 <3 Sorry to everyone who lost their hard work. D:
#32
This made me want to cry or at least ragequit, but I had my favorite thread open in a separate tab all night to reply to once the site went back online, so now we can reconstruct at least those posts. The universe giveth and taketh away. ;n; The 30,000th topic is gone...

I vote we get a new Catacomb Skull for surviving this. :> And I would donate money gladly, if it meant this could never happen again.
#33
Lazarus saved my stuff, too. ;____; I'm in such a better mood right now.

And ha, Catacomb skull. xD
#34
I would dontate also, maybe the member that don't have the money can look into other ways of helping (ie swagbucks! where 700 points equals 5.00 into paypal, which in return can be used to help fund our addittiction)
#35
Excuse me while I pitch a fit for 8 character's worth loss of posts

;-;

The info's useful. Thank goodness for posts that were saved on the second! I'm willing to donate if it means this won't happen again.

Thanks for the effort.
#36
I haven't lost too much in this, but I can understand the complete and utter frustration, the sense of loss and almost depression and that's only from four posts. I couldn't even imagine the scale that Bria or Sunny are feeling.

I agree that we need to make out stuff secure so that this cannot happen again. I can donate around $15 - $20 each month out of my wages.
#37
Thanks SA, you guys are awesome and I know maybe some of you were probably up late trying to fix this, thank you so much <3
So, I would donate, but the lack of paypal and shizz is kind of keeping me from it...Once payday comes, perhaps (if it'll work) I can throw in a few dollars via snailmail? I think it's transferable to an account (if a check is sent...)
BUT THE POSTS. WHY IN THE WORLD DID I NOT SAVE THEM? thats what I usually do.... ;n;
#38
To answer your question:

Quote:This would elliminate the problem of other clients on the server affecting us, but it would also set us back $540/year, which is more than seven times what we're currently paying for hosting.

No.

First of all, switching to a private server will not eliminate the concerns you have. If you did this, your new private server would be just as vulnerable to hacker/DOS attacks , and it would have the same probability of hardware failure. It's true that your probability of being hacked will be lower as you'd be the only site on the server, but if it happens, the damage will either be the same, or worse.

Secondly, $540 is a huge, huge, huge chunk of money, especially for a website and wiki. Souls is large and old, yes, but you'd have so much unused space and resources that it would be silly to pay that much to use so little. $540 is what someone would pay to host an online MMORPG with a hundred users online at any time.

I understand how you feel. However, if you still feel threatened, you have another, perhaps better option than paying all that money : automatic backups. I believe that in your hosting cPanel, you have the option to make automatic backups yourself. Monthly backups are sufficient for any normal site. If you feel threatened, consider weekly backups. If you feel paranoid and extremely, extremely threatened, every day or twice a week backups.
#39
Quote:First of all, switching to a private server will not eliminate the concerns you have. If you did this, your new private server would be just as vulnerable to hacker/DOS attacks
The concern isn't about hackers or DOS attacks, however - it's about other people's websites getting too many hits or being overloaded, thus overloading the entire server, which has 'Souls on it! I don't think that 'Souls has a lot of attacks directed towards it. Tongue
#40
QUOTE (Sura @ Aug 6 2012, 01:24 PM)

First of all, switching to a private server will not eliminate the concerns you have. If you did this, your new private server would be just as vulnerable to hacker/DOS attacks , and it would have the same probability of hardware failure. It's true that your probability of being hacked will be lower as you'd be the only site on the server, but if it happens, the damage will either be the same, or worse.

Secondly, $540 is a huge, huge, huge chunk of money, especially for a website and wiki. Souls is large and old, yes, but you'd have so much unused space and resources that it would be silly to pay that much to use so little. $540 is what someone would pay to host an online MMORPG with a hundred users online at any time.

I understand how you feel. However, if you still feel threatened, you have another, perhaps better option than paying all that money : automatic backups. I believe that in your hosting cPanel, you have the option to make automatic backups yourself. Monthly backups are sufficient for any normal site. If you feel threatened, consider weekly backups. If you feel paranoid and extremely, extremely threatened, every day or twice a week backups. [/quote]
There have been a few instances in the past where "abuse" by other clients on the server lead to various problems, though none as serious as what just happened. In these cases, it seemed most of the causes were internal, with other clients loading bad crap onto the server themselves rather than external forces. It's true that a private server would not solve issues relating to hacking, DDOS, and hardware failure.

And, I am very sorry to report that after some extensive back-and-forth with the host, it seems that the initial explanation of neighborly abuse was incorrect. It was disk failure, and despite redundancies setup server-side to maintain multiple copies of data, it seems that our database was partially corrupted in the process, resulting in the lost data. So for this particular incident, moving to a private server would not help.

Back in the day, we raised $300+ on at least two occasions to fund Ezboard Gold, which was even more extravagant and outrageous, so I know $540/year is not an impossible amount. However, in light of the disk failure revelation, I don't know that it'd be worth it. Those of you that have already donated -- thank you, so much, seriously, you are all fantastic -- but it looks like we'll probably not be pursuing that route for the time being. If any of you would like a full or partial refund of your donation, please PM the 'Souls Assemblage or email admin@soulsrpg. <3

For now, I will try to set up automated daily backups because seriously, 'Souls probably sees 100+ IC posts a day on a good day. That is probably 35k+ words/day lost if this happens again, so we'll err on the side of paranoia. I would recommend always, always, always saving local copies of your posts and threads as well.

Thanks everyone for being so understanding. <3


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