NEWS -- Recent downtime, data loss, etc.
#1
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What happened?!

Okay! Board is back! Unfortunately, we have lost all forum data from between August 2nd and when we took the board down in the early hours of August 6th. Sad This includes all posts, PMs, and whatever else was posted to the board in that time. We're just grateful that our host had a backup from August 2nd because our last manual backup was from July 18th, so the damage could have been much worse.


As for what happened... 'Souls is hosted on a shared server, which means that our host has other clients that host their sites on the same physical machine. This also means that if one of those other clients decides to wreck havoc on the server that sometimes we end up as collateral damage. As a result of "abuse," the server was having serious issues for about an hour around 12:30am EST this morning and we subsequently lost a huge chunk of the information on our database. As far as we can tell, we haven't lost any data elsewhere on the server (pack sites, wiki, RP Guide), but do let us know if we're wrong about that.


We're very sorry about and equally furious at the inconvenience of losing ~3 days worth of posts, but this was essentially out of our control. Sad


Please do repost any missing threads and posts you might have saved on your computer. Post counts have been reset to August 2nd as well, so there's no need to have those adjusted. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the data loss, do post here or PM us.


The administration has long thought of moving from shared hosting to a private server. 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.


So we pose this question! Do you think it would be worth it to try and raise that amount every year for the peace of mind of a private server? Would you be willing to donate or make purchases from the 'Souls Store towards that cause? The data loss we experienced tonight would have been devastating if not for the backups, and we can't be certain it won't happen again. You can be sure that we'll be especially vigilant about maintaining recent backups moving forward, but there will always be a data gap.


See this addendum.


Please let us know your thoughts! ♥


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#2
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Because of the data lose, I believe the permissions on Bridget's account to post have been reversed. Since all of her posts have been erased I figured it was a good idea to ask if her account is able to post..
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#3
You're right, the permissions were reverted. Just fixed them. <3

In the future, this sort of stuff can just be posted to Maintenance instead of Q&H. Thanks!
#4
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Ah, sorry. I am not thinking straight.. I am kinda out of it seeing that I did not save any of the posts I made.. So all 6 of her posts are gone and points.. Sorry I need to think straight. I am glad the backup was at least at August 2nd though..
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#5
No worries. It's understandable. :c

Trust us when we say we're just as mad about the data loss as you guys are. We're missing a ton of stuff like auxiliary character and puppy discussions and other administrative topics. D;

Might merge this with our news topic in a bit.
#6
Yeah my eyes are pretty much bleeding with seeing how much new work I have ;-; all those rank threads
#7
:|

:|

:|

Goddamnit. Know its not your fault but this is REALLY annoying. D:

How is this going to affect requests which require activity checks, such as my puppy request that's gonna be made later this month? The gap from my holiday is bad enough, another 3/4 day gap and i'm fucked :|
#8
Tumblr questions popping up and just asnwered:

Quote:
Quote:What do we do if all the posts are lost?

You’ll just have to repost them. Sad If you don’t have them saved on your computer, you’ll have to rewrite them too. Sad

Quote:
Quote:Will the data loss be taken into consideration with requests? Because if we posted well before, but then didn't post as much because we were busy catching up, it's not really our fault is it?

Date-wise, a 3-day gap in posts will not affect requests much anyway.

Unfortunately, we cannot take into consideration lost post counts because there’s no way for us to verify either way. You could have lost 3 posts or you could have lost 30. We just can’t tell. Sad If you have your posts saved to your computer, you may absolutely repost them and regain the post counts, but otherwise, there’s not much we can do at this point. Sad
#9
I'm too tired to even take this all in right now. v___v Kudos to you guys for helping figure this out and help us with the problem. <3

I do have a question regarding IC threads that were affected by the data loss. I know that a couple of my threads were spreed in or otherwise had a lot of posts made over the days since the backup, and it would be frustrating as all hell to try to recreate those posts. I'm sure others would feel the same way.

Basically, I am asking if it would be against the rules or otherwise not good to utilize "time skips" in those threads. Instead of trying to redo the posts, the next person to reply to the thread would write an ooc "summary" about the posts eaten by the data loss, and they would continue where they would have if the loss hadn't happened.

Would that be allowed? It would come at the cost of post counts, but it would also be less stressful for a lot of us.
#10
Yes.

If players and their thread partners discuss and decide to post an OOC summary of the posts lost instead of rewriting them all, that would be acceptable. The person making the OOC post would even be able to keep that +1 post count and if you post in Maintenance, we'd be willing to +1 for all other thread participants as well. But ONLY +1, since we can't verify how many posts anyone made either way. :c Hope that's of some help though. :c
#11
Thank you, that is actually very helpful. It keeps us from stressing over how exactly our posts went, so we can just summarize what we remember then pick up where we left off.

And I had meant the OOC summary could be within an IC post, but the +1 is generous so thanks for that too. <3

Good luck to you guys sorting with all this crap on your end. ;__;
#12
As long as everyone's as cool about it as you guys have been thus far! 8B I expected nothing less from 'Souls though. You guys are awesome! <3
#13
Thanks for trying your best you guys <3 It sucks but these things are definitely out of your control D:
#14
'Souls just temporarily went down again for a few minutes, for me anyway. Honey & I are threading on Google Docs until we're 100% sure everything is back to normal - I'll be saving my posts too.

You guiz might wanna do this for the next day or two also, just in case? ;;


As for my part, I don't mind donating/purchasing from the Souls Store if we're gunning for the private server. It is expensive but I think our community might be big enough to sustain an amount like that, assuming everyone pitches in? 540$ / 207 active characters we have right now = 2.60$ per char. I think that's more than reasonable. And a lot more than 2.60$ would come out of my pocket.


-shrugs-
#15
Per char? Bria will be paying a fortune! xD

If 'Souls decides to switch servers I will pitch in as much as I can <3

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
#16
I didn't even know that the server was down (studying, I guess). I only lost one post, since I"ve only posted once since then, but I'm still sad about it, heh. I'll be sure to make things up soon after exams. OnO

As for donating to 'Souls, I'd be willing to. I've never actually bought from the 'Souls store, but maybe that'll be a good excuse. OuO
#17
Lol Sunny! I was just throwing some numbers out there. I'm sure people pitching in a bit more would cover the over-achievers :3
#18
I theory I'd be happy to do that, but it's all about whether my parents would agree to hand over the money.
#19
I'd be more than willing to donate my hard earned student loan money (-snort-) if we were to switch to a private server. In honesty, the loss I feel of having the past three days removed is enough for me to open my bank account! haha

-glances forlornly at the decimated Coli x Saul thread-
#20
QUOTE (Saul Stormbringer @ Aug 6 2012, 02:48 PM)
I'd be more than willing to donate my hard earned student loan money (-snort-) if we were to switch to a private server. In honesty, the loss I feel of having the past three days removed is enough for me to open my bank account! haha

-glances forlornly at the decimated Coli x Saul thread- [/quote]
Totally with you there Honey. I'd be willing to donate, since yeah. Loosing all my posts and shiz = not cool and if by donating it can be prevented, then seems like a good idea?


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