# What happened?



## dan_ (Feb 5, 2008)

Server crash? Forum exploit/bug?


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## LowWatt (Jun 27, 2007)

Looks like it all had to revert back to early on the 11th to bring it back to life.


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

Yeah that's what I'd like to know. I e-mailed Faracaster about it and he was saying that he hoped the whole website didn't go down. Imagine losing all these posts! Glad to see everything's okay now. :smile: Whatever happened, I hope doesn't happen again.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

So far, this is all the info I am able to get. I am sure they will post more for me. I will see if we can get to the bottom of the issue.



> 3:45am: We will be replacing some hardware on the affected server or migrating websites to our backup server this afternoon/evening. Once this is complete we will update this page.
> 
> 11:30am: We are continuing to look into the issue with the excelsior server which is currently not working. It appears it shut down spontaneously last night around 11:30pm and we were able to bring it back up this morning but it crashed again shortly afterwards. We are continuing to look at the problem to isolate the issue and will post any updates on this page. We do apologize for the extended outage this morning and will get it restored as soon as possible.
> 
> 8am: The excelsior server is currently unavailable. We are looking into the issue right now and more information will be posted here once more details are known. This is affecting access to email, ftp and website for customers on this server.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Full moon at perigee...it's the only logical explanation. 
Is there a lot of hair on the floor around the server by any chance? Neighbours reporting losing any chickens? Maidens? Any blood curdling screams in the night? 










(Maybe you could relocate the server hosting to Newfoundland for next time...)


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

LowWatt said:


> Looks like it all had to revert back to early on the 11th to bring it back to life.


Yeah, we seemed to have lost a lot of posts and all the people that signed up since the 11th. All stats are out of whack. Hopefully we did not lose that info for good.


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## bagpipe (Sep 19, 2006)

And we're back. I never realised how much I miss you guys ! <sob> .. <sob>

Lets have a group hug.:food-smiley-004:


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## dan_ (Feb 5, 2008)

seriously...longest day at work ever.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

dan_ said:


> seriously...longest day at work ever.


Hahaha, seriously. There's nothing that makes a work day go by faster than looking at other people's pedalboards.

That sucks about the lost info, but hopefully the members will rejoin.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

I have a feeling that some of the stuff that was sold is for sale all over again....


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

dan_ said:


> seriously...longest day at work ever.


And in other news, Canada's GDP jumped today by the largest percentage ever in recorded history. Sources are saying there was a sudden unexplained upsurge in productivity across the country. The situation has however returned to normal.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

devnulljp said:


> And in other news, Canada's GDP jumped today by the largest percentage ever in recorded history. Sources are saying there was a sudden unexplained upsurge in productivity across the country. The situation has however returned to normal.


Just think...if we could all give up this forum for a few days, it might just put an end to the recession.

Which begs the question...are forums possibly the real underlying cause of the global recession?

Dave


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

I was checking out a couple of threads that I was sure I'd posted in, but nothing there--so I went looking for a thread like this one to check it out.

At least we have most of it left.

Now I have to go read what's happened since.


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## bagpipe (Sep 19, 2006)

devnulljp said:


> And in other news, Canada's GDP jumped today by the largest percentage ever in recorded history. Sources are saying there was a sudden unexplained upsurge in productivity across the country. The situation has however returned to normal.


Yeah, but a surge like that would never be attributed to musicians. A surge in recreational drug use maybe!


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

bagpipe said:


> Yeah, but a surge like that would never be attributed to musicians. A surge in recreational drug use maybe!


Or an increase in sleeping in.:smile:

So somebody tell me--why are music stores open before 10:30?:smile:


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

*Server Update*

I have spoken to my provider. The information (posts and new accounts) between the 11th and today are gone for good. the failure on that server was terminal. They have moved us over to a back-up server for now until that one can be replaced. They expect to have us back on the new server during the xmas break. 

We will have to re-build. Any users that read this and find that their account is gone, just re-sign up and you will be fine. The posts... well we have lost those so we move on from here. Sorry for the inconvenience but these things will happen now and again. This time was our turn.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

Paul said:


> So our girlfriends can return the rental PA on their way to work.


Good one...


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

GuitarsCanada said:


> We will have to re-build. Any users that read this and find that their account is gone, just re-sign up and you will be fine. The posts... well we have lost those so we move on from here. Sorry for the inconvenience but these things will happen now and again. This time was our turn.


Damn, and I posted my plans for a perpetual motion machine, a cure or cancer, and a foolproof solution to the world's economic crisis yesterday. But I don't have a backup...did anyone get a copy? I can't remember all the details...


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## fraser (Feb 24, 2007)

looks like i completely missed this one lol- never noticed till i looked at this thread. cool- my quest to become totally oblivious to everything is starting to show results.


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## Ophidian (May 22, 2006)

I'm glad the site came back. I was in the process on finishing buying a guitar from another member.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

devnulljp said:


> Damn, and I posted my plans for a perpetual motion machine, a cure or cancer, and a foolproof solution to the world's economic crisis yesterday. But I don't have a backup...did anyone get a copy? I can't remember all the details...


I mentioned a guitar I got some GAS for.

Now I seem to have forgotten it--I guess I'm cured--as long as I stay away from music stores!:smile::smile:

(Okay, I remember--and I'm okay without it. Really.)


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## Jeff Flowerday (Jan 23, 2006)

Well it's good to see it back up, I was getting a little worried.

I guess it could have been worse as well, we could have lost months of posts, not just 3 days.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Jeff Flowerday said:


> Well it's good to see it back up, I was getting a little worried.


Yes Jeff, but tell us about the server...
[youtube=Option]kkQDbfF4RqA[/youtube]
*Talk to your doctor. Side effects may include headache, facial flushing, upset stomach, temporary bluish vision or blurred vision, or sensitivity to light.










"_Thank you folks I'll be here all week. Tip your servers on the way out_"


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

Jeff Flowerday said:


> Well it's good to see it back up, I was getting a little worried.
> 
> *I guess it could have been worse as well, we could have lost months of posts, not just 3 days.*


 what a fearsome thought!


Say, all forums are administered/maintained differently. Not sure if it is ISP differences or a difference in the styles of the owners/operators of the sites. Is it maybe prudent to maintain an off-site (off this isp that is, on a fully seperate and unconnected server; remember the myspace vault fire a few years ago!) backup? At least maybe weekly or of selections like new members or the like? 

I have been on forums that have text based archives of anything over 1 to 5 years old (like I said, no consistency in style ) and I have been on forums that have indeed poofed! permanently with server fails (usually means the hard drive has shattered when it is permanent, otherwise you could just pop the old boards off the dead drive, pop new ones on and bobs your uncle).

If there were such an option or means, and such was not already in place, I would like to cast in the vote that such be concidered.

:bow: not that what I have to say is of any great value or meaning to the world as we know it, but there are a lot of people here I respect that do have things to say that I do look back at, read and value!


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Bare Metal are pretty good.


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

dan_ said:


> seriously...longest day at work ever.


+1!!! Long and boring I might add (it's not our busy time)


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

& it's just like Groundhog day!! back to the 11th!


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

I was beginning to get worried...the last time I missed a day was before I quit drinking.

Good to see it, and us, up and running again.

Oh, and thanks for babysitting the site, and by extension, us.

Peace, Mooh.


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

I'm pretty sure that I didn't post anything of real significance over the past few days. Give me a few days though and I'm sure I'll post what ever it was all over again........


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Paul said:


> Damn!!!!
> 
> I'd passed Henman and had Robert1950 ever closer in my post count sights!
> 
> Damn!!!!


Looks like I'll have to increase the one liners. :sport-smiley-002:


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## Jeff Flowerday (Jan 23, 2006)

keeperofthegood said:


> what a fearsome thought!
> 
> 
> Say, all forums are administered/maintained differently. Not sure if it is ISP differences or a difference in the styles of the owners/operators of the sites. Is it maybe prudent to maintain an off-site (off this isp that is, on a fully seperate and unconnected server; remember the myspace vault fire a few years ago!) backup? At least maybe weekly or of selections like new members or the like?
> ...


Remember the site is ran with money out of Scott's pocket. Implementing any backup solution other than what the ISP provides is more than Scott needs to be spending.

I don't think the donation button has been too busy over the last while...


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Jeff Flowerday said:


> Remember the site is ran with money out of Scott's pocket. Implementing any backup solution other than what the ISP provides is more than Scott needs to be spending.
> 
> *I don't think the donation button has been too busy over the last while*...



Oh damn. You know how you get familiar with something and lose track of the little stuff? That's me + donation button. Thanks for the reminder Jeff, sent a small Xmas token in. I'm beyond overdue hehe. :food-smiley-004:


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

keeperofthegood said:


> what a fearsome thought!
> 
> 
> Say, all forums are administered/maintained differently. Not sure if it is ISP differences or a difference in the styles of the owners/operators of the sites. Is it maybe prudent to maintain an off-site (off this isp that is, on a fully seperate and unconnected server; remember the myspace vault fire a few years ago!) backup? At least maybe weekly or of selections like new members or the like?
> ...


I am pretty good at making websites and understanding how they work etc but my understanding of servers and how they work is pretty limited. I do know for sure that the ISP does regular back-ups. I cannot remember how often it was though. I will check with them again and see. As Jeff mentioned in another post here, I have to be careful on the cost of doing anything more than what we currently do. The forum has grown larger than we had originally anticipated. We had to move to a new server about a year ago to handle our traffic. At a average growth rate of 4 new peeps a day by this time next year we will be that much bigger and using that much more juice. Rest assured I would never just kill this forum, it belongs to all of us now and if I ever wanted to get out I would make sure someone else gets the rights to keep the GC name and run the forum.

I will have another chat with the ISP to see what can be done to further protect us from failures. By the way, it was a CPU multi-fan that killed the server. They kept re-booting it but it would crash again within an hour. Took them a bit to troubleshoot it.


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

and yours is better than mine! Like I said, style VS ISP provisions and not saying anything personal about you! A follow up on what the ISP is giving for backups and data integrity sounds like a good plan. Being just a failed fan and not the drives themselves I would suspect the drive data is still intact, but the time differences now and such does put that to being "lost". 

The forum that went poof! went because there was nothing left to start up again after their server went, it was a year before they came back fully (they limped for a while with a partial forum and ugg what a mess) with a new ISP etc, but all the history was gone completely. XD and I do know it costs a lot. I wan't thinking spending anything. For instance, webNG offers 350 megs of space free and there are others like that. I've no idea what a snapshot of the forum is in terms of size eek: growth man growth!) but that was all I was thinking of, the data in a snapshot zipped to a single file or two, not a full-on second instance of the forum.  unless there is no other way a backup can be made. Hmm, leads me to the innevitable question, what is a backup anyways? GAHHH I can go on but I've a blown ear drum and minor fever today so I should shush.

OH and about donations. I just tried. It would not let me. I don't have a lot, and I was trying to send 10 dollars (really, I don't have a lot :frown and the page just refreshes with the message:

"Please enter an amount greater than zero."

I don't know if I did something wrong or not. :/ its weird!


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Another day (#2) at work completely ruined...

Scott...sorry that this causes you so much extra work and grief. 

Cheers

Dave


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

Thanks a lot Scott, you solved the problem and you take the time to send us a mail to make us feel secure! Really nice! I'll send a Xmas gift to you!


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

keeperofthegood said:


> OH and about donations. I just tried. It would not let me. I don't have a lot, and I was trying to send 10 dollars (really, I don't have a lot :frown and the page just refreshes with the message:
> 
> "Please enter an amount greater than zero."
> 
> I don't know if I did something wrong or not. :/ its weird!


Just click on the update total before process!


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

Ti-Ron said:


> Just click on the update total before process!





> Your payment for $10.00 CAD has been completed.
> 
> You are now being redirected to GuitarsCanada.com
> 
> If you are not redirected within 5 seconds click here.












Thanks :wave:


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Thanks Jeff and Scott for dealing with the forum issues (and for the heads-up email).


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## Jeff Flowerday (Jan 23, 2006)

devnulljp said:


> Thanks Jeff and Scott for dealing with the forum issues (and for the heads-up email).


I have nothing to do with solving forum issues, it's all Scott.


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