What's happening with the Forums

MSE_Martin

Hi folks

I thought it was time I wrote to you with a detailed explanation of what's going on.

The background

Two weeks ago we were hit by a deliberate and malicious DDOS attack. Ever since I've briefed the techies and the server company to beef up the sites defences.

What's happened this weekend.

As part of this, early monday morning (ie 1am) we closed the forums for scheduled maintenance to have the servers moved to a new rack within the bunker they're stored in by our server company.

During this, something happened to the main database server for the Forum (amongst other problems) and there was a major hardware failure which is why the Forums had to be closed on Monday.

This was then restored, but when we loaded it, we noticed lots of missing posts; and assumed there was still a hardware error. We then worked on getting a correct back-up (we back up hourly).

Then the nightmare struck. For some reason our server company have been doing incremental back-ups only - ie backups of things that changed from June. So that's all we have and this means if a thread was started before June even if it was posted later - its gone.

So now the job is to try and find the older back-ups and try and replace the threads. It's going to take most of the week - we'll be closing the forums overnight on Thur and Friday - and there's no guarantee it'll be up. Obviously this has all effected the forum search too.

These days we have a senior, grown up server company and a major industrial strength expensive solution with large multiple servers. I am still not sure exactly where the fault lies; but if you've ever seen me ranting on TV about misselling of financial products - you'll get the idea of what I've been doing today (lets leave it there).



What next?

We try and fix it. Simple as that - those old posts contain amazing amounts of useful info. They're the history of the site. More so it hurts the site going forward as we have a very long 'search tail' ie people come to the site due to the breadth of coverage; and this will kill that. I won't even mention that the bank charges successes thread is one of those thats gone.

Yet even if we can't fix it - the sheer size of this forum will enable us to carry on and rebuild. We may need to ask for regulars to help and brainstorm the stickies so we can rebuild them. I may at some stage ask you to venture to the main site and check the article discussion links as there's lots of work. Yet we will get this all back and working and I'm so sorry about it.

My techie team are doing a sterling job and the server company are pulling many fingers out to make sure it all starts to work.

I thought it important you all understand what's happened and why it may take some time to piece it all together. Sorry if you're looking for old posts and diaries and they're not there - I want them back and am going to kick and scream until they are back!

Martin

Nile

Thanks for the information. You're surrounded by a great team and also have lots of members who are willing to help out.;)

Keep up the good work.:T

mountainchrisriver

Good luck with it all... and if you need any help investigating links, threads, posts and the like I am sure there are many folk on here willing to help out... just let us know eh... oh and thanks for the update, its good to know whats going on... :beer:

~Chameleon~

What's the name of that website that holds old cached copies of sites? Might that be of any use, assuming anyone knows what I'm talking about of course


ETA: Just remembered it's called the Wayback Machine! Here you go!!!:j

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com

SarahNeedle1872

MSE_Martin wrote: »

I am still not sure exactly where the fault lies; but if you've ever seen me ranting on TV about misselling of financial products - you'll get the idea of what I've been doing today (lets leave it there).
Martin

Oh to be a fly on the wall in *that* meeting!
U guys and girls are all doing a great job.... and if the forums do need re-building, what better people to help than us!?!:D

Chin up peeps, we all love u!

Sarah x

NOSONDDU

Thanks for letting us all know what is happening, cheers and good luck. I am so glad I found this site as it's brilliant.

dazco

I know what you mean Martin, I moved my computer to decorate and when I put it back together the mouse did not work. EXACTLY the same eh?:D

redux

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Then the nightmare struck. For some reason our server company have been doing incremental back-ups only - ie backups of things that changed from June. So that's all we have and this means if a thread was started before June even if it was posted later - its gone.

In fact threads that straddle that time are there, but without the earlier posts. And earlier threads can be viewed empty, so there is still some database structure.

Good luck and best wishes to the staff who seem to have yet more overwork in front of them.

SmileyHappyBeing

Good luck ! Great site..

louidog

Blimey! :eek:
I know the site is in safe hands Martin and I know we can all trust you to sort it out and get it back to how it was! Many thanks for letting us know what the situtation is too

Good luck to you and your team!

Quasar

Thanks Martin. Now I can plan some work knowing I won't be tempted to log in...