The very short version... I broke the site, the backups were empty, we had to rollback to January 28, 2010. I'm very sorry. This hurts me...there are a lot of missing posts, articles, people, garages, features and stuff I haven't figured out is missing yet. Dust will be flying for the next few days as I try to fix as much as I can. I have the emails of all that registered up to Feb 21 and will be sending out a newsletter very soon that will repeat a lot of this. If you know someone that is missing and have a way to contact them, please do, and I thank you very much for doing so. The much longer version (warning contains geeky stuff) I run a test site to test everything before it goes live. On a somewhat regular basis I log into the back end to replicate the data base. Another script is run to move that to the test version. It's a cut and paste thing I've done like a gazillion times. Well today for some odd reason we've yet to figure out the test DB was replicated and move to production, just a wee bit backwards. The last time I did this was Jan 28. This really should not have been a big issue. The host does hourly backups. Well...when the site was moved the DB password used by the backup job was configured incorrectly by the host. There were loads of backups out there, every one of them with an empty DB. Whoops... So, after a bit of angst on my part it was time to move on and create a plan to fix this issue in a way to manage the fallout. The plan is in action. Backups were taken before moving forward. I will be working diligently to bring back as much as I can, but I do need your help please. If you wrote an article for the library since Jan 28 it will need to be recreated please. Any images you may have in the Gallery are still there, they are stored in and different DB. If you run into an error or think something is missing no matter how trivial that item may be please let me know. I will try and fix it. Thanks your support and understanding, Nathan
You mean it was all just a dream? :yikes: Sorry to hear of the troubles. Had something similar happen with a skunkworks site I was running. Very annoying.
Stuff happens!! When it happens to me I hope to learn from it and then try to move forward. We are going to hang with you! Thanks for a great site!
As long as you bump my postcount up by about 800,000, we're good. Because I was seriously closing on Tuls before this happened.
It is unfortunate to have lost the information. Some of it will never be replaced. You will probably never entirely forgive yourself. Your efforts to manage the site and keep it running as well as it does are appreciated, so it's the least we can do to be understanding and forgive you. Lessons learned, pieces picked up, moving on with life...
Damn Nate to think my post jan28 pearls of wisdom have been wasted! :ihih: Take a deeeep breath brother, it's allright F'ing up is part of life. Hate when I do it but it's the way we roll
Tried to access the site earlier. Just got your e-mail. MINI Thanks for the heads up. Hope your able to retrieve all or most. I really appreciate all the work you do in keeping this site available for all the MINI/Mini owners. Alot of GREAT info. Once again, MINI Thanks!!!!!!!
Post counts are just a number, like age, who cares :arf: that was a bad joke, sorry. Glad to see the site back
WHUT. The project car article was a protracted beat-down to put together. Maybe later once my insides aren't broken, I'll do it over, if need be.
Nat That $500 that you offered me for my JCW badge, I accept. If you don't recall sending me the PM just check your PM history
OK, best thing to do now is move on, re-post what we can remember, re-start threads we can remember, or at least make up new stuff:devil: Some things may be lost, but the site will live on. Mark
I'm still here :cornut: Does this mean Lynn gets a redo? Please, please, please :aureola: It must have been in the cards
Sucks, but it will be okay. If someone is looking for something specific, anyone who knows can post up what they know and the info will come back that way. As needed.
Check was sent, or Cheque for you...go stand by the mailbox and I'm sure it will be there any minute now.