RMXP.org's downtime: The whole story

[Erk]

Whew. This is gonna be windy.

We are currently running on a backup from late September. I hope this does not remain the case. I haven't wanted to restore from this backup, but it is the only one I have that seems to be full and intact, and although hostgator says they have a newer version, it is taking them days to answer emails. Their hosting is good, and I am not sure I want to get rid of that, but their service is amazingly poor.

Here is the timeline of what has been going on these last few days.

• the site was hacked. It was a minor hack that moved everyone to the admin usergroup, and we have a record of who did it. I sent out a request for a DB restore to hostgator because they could do it faster than me - I had to download a 500mb file and reupload it by HTTP, they could do it on the server.
• I fixed the hack and was in themiddle of writing an email telling hostgator to not bother when someone told me there was a database error on .org. Hostgator had uploaded the november backup, and it turned out it was very incomplete. Great. I uploaded the next oldest backup, and it too was incomplete. All my backups through to this one in September are incomplete.
• I put out a restore request from hostgator's own files. They told me they have one at least from october, and maybe one from November.
• Hostgator has not really replied to me since. I get one email once in a while; one time one guy tried to fix the database but used the same file they had tried before, from our site, which is incomplete. Since then, they have been silent.
• Important to note, if it were not for Myonosken and the support staff at vBulletin, we would still be down. Thanks very much to them both. The vBulletin support staff are some of my favourite people on earth right now.

So here we are. September again. Is this the end of the world? Not really. We lost 5 months before and bounced back. Am I upset? Words do not begin to describe it. I am livid. I fixed the damned thing, and then lost it all!!! I had backups!!! Grr. However, pulling my hair out is not going to accomplish anything.

I am going to ensure that this database is preserved when hostgator tries to restore their backups. Please keep your important posts backed up locally though. I really hope that this database is temporary, so you may need to repost information... don't rely on that though. I sure as hell am never going to rely on hostgator support again.

Hang together everyone, and welcome back.

 

[Erk]

Update: I am aware of the usergroup database error. Fixing it.

 

[$t3v0]

Eek, it does sound like you had a lot of trouble with the entire process. It kind of makes me appreciate just how much time and effort goes into this forum from an administrator's point of view.

Glad everything is restored back to use. That's all that matters. A nice fresh start to a nice fresh site.

~ $t3v0

 

[Yeyinde]

It's nice that the forums are back, even though the database is out-of-date and my username is MeisMe again

 

[Erk]

On the other hand, it is not blue. Woot, a glitch that fixed itself with the rollback, there is a bright side.

I will create a thread for users whose groups or badges or names need to be redone.

 

[DJ Jack]

It's good to see everything is back, as well. Good thing the Forums haven't completely disappeared. That would seriously be a problem. :/

 

[Erk]

Man, night, you have no idea how happy I am to see good old Dragon Kid smiling down at me again. The last few days have really sucked.

 

[DJ Jack]

Well, it's good to see the Dragon Kid is back once again, also, Erk. It's just sad to see you having to fix all this along with Dz, and ccoa. Why do hackers have to be such fags.

 

[Euphony]

Yeah, I'm just glad that the forum is back, even though it's out of date. It's so freaking weird seeing no new posts, though. XD

I'm sure everyone appreciates all the work you've put into getting it back. Here's to hoping that a newer backup can be found.

 

[SephirothSpawn]

As $t3v0, we appreciate all the work, effort and frustration you go throw for all of us.

I hope we find a backup more recent, but this will do for now. Sorry to hear the hosting is bad with support.

Man, I really wish I would have got that backup-team going a little faster. I just had a feeling we would need it...

Just give it some time, and we will arise to our former glory, once again. Nothing has stopped our community so far, and this most certaintly won't either (no matter how annoying it is).

 

[Jstreet]

I'm glad we can all express how glad we are that the forums are back online.

Erk you could've always looked at the error message screen to see the Dragon Kid. :P

 

[OdioOmnus]

Nice, it's finally back up. Sounds like it was definitely an irritating process.

 

[Balore]

Sounds like you've had it rough for awhile.

Site's looking great now though.

 

[linkz0r]

So here we are. September again. Is this the end of the world?

Sure it is.

Jk! xD But i´m glad the site is back, those was the worst days in my maker life, i had nightmares thinking about the worst about the future of rmxp.org... Five months is surely a LOT of time talking about a so active community like .org, but that´s not the first time that such thing happens. We will "survive" after all.

And life continues. ^^

 

[AceJP]

were back!
And here I was theorizing that you guys just wanted us to get involved in the wiki :P
Thanks for all your hard work! You definitely have gained a lot of respect from me for all of your dedication to this community!
Long live September! The stronger of the months :D

 

[~Atlaswing~]

Damn... Good thing the forum went back up.

For the last 3 days i was all alone in the dark abyss of internet searching...

EDIT
And my avatar... :D

 

[linkz0r]

Long live September!

Put long live in that, September lasted 3-4 months... xD

 

[Culex]

I sense an unavoidable flood of hackers are so immature posts on its way. Hurry! Under your desks!

This is the best place for RPG Maker XP support. Period. I've been wandering around the internet trying to find support at other sites, periodically returning here to see if the site was back up yet. It's just not the same. All I can say is, it's good to be home. :lol:

 

[~Atlaswing~]

Now that i really need the UMS... -_-

And other great scripts...

 

[Tana]

no thread icons though....
But yay.