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Atkin admin >> Tech >> Server migration issues -- resolved?
(Message started by: S J Birkill on Today at 21:41)

Title: Server migration issues -- resolved?
Post by S J Birkill on Today at 21:41
Hi Gang!

Sorry about the downtime -- I think we're fully functional again now.

We've suffered a couple of upheavals over the past fortnight: first our hosting service (Dreamhost) discovered that the machine hosting peteatkin.com was terminally nackered, and transferred us to a new physical server at their Los Angeles farm. Then a few days later we were subject to an already-planned move to a new data centre in Virginia.

It seems that our old server in California was manifesting some file corruptions at the time of the transfer, and some of our Forum files somehow became mashed up with log and statistics files for other users on the same machine. Whether these errors were transferred to the new Virginia hardware or not is unclear, as we can't be sure whether some of the issues seen (by myself and other members) on Sunday were due to the delay in DNS propagation or to copied errors, but either way the result was that with effect from yesterday morning the Virginia copy seems to have been rolled back, at least in part, to a version some two weeks old.

Fortunately (in one way) there's not been much activity here recently, so the repairs needed weren't excessive. I restored a total of three forum posts, two from local backups made during the upheaval and one recreated from my browser's cache. I also fixed a couple of dodgy metadata files which were preventing the display of their associated threads. The post you're reading supersedes the original of this message, which some of you will have seen on Sunday when I became aware of the disturbance; this one tells a more complete story.

Some member files were also corrupted, and at one point it seemed that two or three members had lost one or more of their IM folders, but I think these are now OK, as are everyone's membership details and log-ins. There may be some remaining file date anomalies which we'll have to live with, but I don't think there are any permanent losses, so I haven't felt the need to contact any of you via e-mail (you have kept your Profile information up to date, haven't you?)

One individual signed up as a new member at the height of the disturbance, and as a result may not have received his automated welcome message, the one which invites you to respond by e-mail to confirm your membership. Either way, he didn't, so his unfulfilled registration will expire after 7 days unless I hear from him. If you're listening, Patrick, please contact me and we'll sort it out.

The same goes for all: if you think there's anything amiss with your membership status, or you can't log in to the Forum, or you find your favourite thread is missing, or things just don't seem to work the way they should, please let me know -- all can be resolved. Registration difficulties are addressed in this thread (http://www.peteatkin.com/cgi-bin/mv/YaBB.cgi?board=tech;action=display;num=1256640326), which also includes my e-mail address.

Keep warm and dry, if you can!

Steve



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