DARK SHADOWS FORUMS

Members' Mausoleum => Calendar Events / Announcements '24 I => Topic started by: Gothick on September 14, 2017, 03:40:56 PM

Title: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Gothick on September 14, 2017, 03:40:56 PM: Dear Cousins,

After getting error messages all day yesterday. today I was finally able to log in here. I had viewed this new location some days ago but there was nothing here except something that I think was written by a robot.

Hope folks can check in on this thread or elsewhere... I feel the need to know I'm not all alone in the Secret Room with the coffin and the candles that never burn out, even after 200 years...

G.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 14, 2017, 04:15:24 PM: You're definitely not all alone because at least Midnite and I are here. Hopefully today things will get back to business as usual while I also slowly get the forum back to its former self...

As I posted in my message at the http://www.dsboards.com/indexse05.html URL, back on Tuesday, after several phone calls to our host I learned that in the wee hours of Tuesday (around 2am ET) they moved the forum from one of their old servers to a new one. However, in the process somehow they managed to lose parts of the forum's database and without those parts the forum will not run correctly, which is why everyone had been getting a fatal error when they tried to visit.

Now, beyond that, there's good and bad news. The good news is that I make backups of the database at least once a month. The bad news is the last time I did one was August 24th, which means 18 days worth of posts are likely to be gone without the ability to recapture them in the form they were in, all thanks to whatever happened when our host moved us. Perhaps they'll show up somewhere from the ether, but lets not count on it. Though it could be much worse - all our posts would be gone forever if it wasn't for my backup. So, just 18 days of posts gone is but a very small fraction of more than 15 years worth of posts.

As I said though, I'll be working on restoring all the old stuff, but first I'm just going to restore some of the latest posts up to August 24th just so that we can get the forum back up and running, which it currently is doing. The 15 years worth of old stuff will trickle in as fast as I can possibly restore it...

You'll also notice that some features, like Spell Check, aren't working yet. That's because they also need to be reinstalled. But one thing at a time...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Uncle Roger on September 14, 2017, 04:33:16 PM: I guess we are all in that same boat.😉😉
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 14, 2017, 04:38:39 PM: I forgot to mention that for some reason it seems like the stay logged in feature doesn't seem to be working. I've had to log in every time I come here...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Uncle Roger on September 14, 2017, 04:44:44 PM: Me too. Oh well.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 14, 2017, 05:05:58 PM: It may just be that the forum's old cookie needs to be cleared from our browsers so that it can be replaced by a new cookie - but I haven't tested that theory because there are more pressing things to get done around here. ;)
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 14, 2017, 06:16:13 PM: The Midnight Storm theme seems to be working, so at least we can get back to the forum looking the way it should if not completely acting the way it should yet...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Gothick on September 14, 2017, 06:36:12 PM: I also had to log in again even though I checked the Forever box earlier. Ah well. It could be much worse.

Lovely to see our home looking more familiar again with the theme and the photos! And you've posted a gorgeous shot of Grayson from hoDS, too, for today's show! Awesome!

Oddly, the "Monster Kids" board for Classic Horror Film fans also just had a move, but it seems as if they didn't lose as much. It sounds as if the people who took care of their move did their homework better than our hosts here did.

I'm very sorry for the losses, but it's fabulous that you have been able to restore so much in such a short time, Mysterioso Darling! As always, I'm so impressed by the quality you and Midnite make such a foundational part of our experience here.

cheers, G.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: michael c on September 14, 2017, 07:32:55 PM: present and accounted for after a two day lock out!
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 14, 2017, 08:58:27 PM: Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on September 14, 2017, 04:15:24 PM
You'll also notice that some features, like Spell Check, aren't working yet.

Spell Check is working...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 15, 2017, 01:39:51 AM: I've uploaded quite a few more posts. Now things reach back to May '12. But there are still more than 10 years' worth of posts to go...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Gerard on September 15, 2017, 02:43:41 AM: Thank the gods I found you!

Gerard
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Josette on September 15, 2017, 07:38:35 AM: Yesterday (early Thursday morning) my login didn't work. I thought perhaps I had forgotten my password. It supposedly sent it, but it never came. Then, the link stopped working. I tried it in 3 different browsers and there was an error message. But a couple of hours later, the link worked again, the password finally worked and I was finally in!

It looked very different from this - what a pleasure to come back now and see it looking "normal"!!!

P.S. Thank you, MB, for all the work you do. It must be a tremendously big project to get this all set up again. So lucky you have all but a couple of weeks.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 15, 2017, 05:23:18 PM: Our Smiley's are back! And even though it's not fall yet, I've already changed the posting page over to pumpkins. If they can already be selling pumpkins in the local farmer's markets around here, we can have pumpkin smileys. [hall2_wink]

Plus, the Halloween theme will be showing up in a little over two weeks, so the pumpkins will give us a small taste of what's to come... [hall2_grin]
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 15, 2017, 05:40:15 PM: It just dawned on me that you shouldn't be surprised if a few mods (like the spoiler feature) aren't working at the moment. That's because I haven't reinstalled them yet... [ghost_nowink]
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Gothick on September 15, 2017, 06:09:35 PM: Just reporting that I've been by to visit a couple of times today, and I haven't had to log in at all! Progress!

Thanks again MB for all your hard work!

G.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Uncle Roger on September 15, 2017, 06:32:02 PM: Thanks from me too, MB! [hall2_smiley]
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 15, 2017, 07:11:41 PM: Interesting because I've still been having to log in. But then I don't think I've been checking the stay logged in box. I'll try that next time...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Midnite on September 15, 2017, 11:57:05 PM: I have to re-log in each time, but what's odd is that I don't have to type a name and password; I just click the Login button.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Gerard on September 16, 2017, 12:21:32 AM: Regarding log-in, for me - for now - I have to click on the www.dsboards.com with all those numbers and letters afterwards (it was just by luck I found it); clicking on just www.dsboards.com only takes one to the error message. After clicking on the www.with-all-the-numbers-and-letters, I get the message with the link to this site. I click on that. I get this site; it wants me to log in. And when I click on log in - voila! - I'm logged in.

Gerard
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Josette on September 16, 2017, 07:34:34 AM: Yesterday I had what Midnite and Gerard reported, with clicking "login" and then I was in. Today I came right in, already logged in, and had forgotten all about that until reading these.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 16, 2017, 04:39:24 PM: I'm still having to log in - so who knows...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 16, 2017, 04:42:11 PM: I'm in the middle of restoring our almost 75000 attachments so that we can get back to the Games boards. Still more than 26000 to go, so it will be a few hours before it's done...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Gothick on September 17, 2017, 01:26:14 AM: I had the same experience getting on the Board today that Midnite reported. It asked me to log in but because Chrome has saved the log-in and password, I just clicked "log in" and immediately I was taken to the refreshed page.

As Grayson was wont to say, "Who can figure anything?"

G.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 17, 2017, 04:31:15 PM: Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on September 16, 2017, 04:42:11 PM
I'm in the middle of restoring our almost 75000 attachments so that we can get back to the Games boards. Still more than 26000 to go, so it will be a few hours before it's done...

Apparently I need to restore all the posts before the attachments feature will work properly. So, I'll attempt to do that tonight...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 17, 2017, 04:34:09 PM: For some reason, as others have reported, just clicking the login button get me in - but without doing that the forum still thinks I'm logged out...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Gerard on September 17, 2017, 06:53:28 PM: After I completely logged in, I saved the board to "favorite places" or whatever on Firefox. Now when I click on it, there I am, fully logged in.

Gerard
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: ProfStokes on September 18, 2017, 04:06:48 AM: So good to see the board back again! Thank you, MB, for preserving our history and restoring it! [hall2_kiss]

ProfStokes
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Josette on September 18, 2017, 06:16:24 AM: I'm wondering if I automatically clicked login the other day and forgot it, because I've had to click it since then.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: patrickm on September 18, 2017, 05:53:17 PM: After Irma, I was in the dark figuratively and literally whatever was going on here. It was working fine til we lost power Sunday evening (and thanks again MB for your concern about us down here), then when we got power back up Tuesday, there was a new looking sign in page. Wouldn't let me log in, so I didn't know...thought maybe you changed providers and we all had to reregister as a formality. I did, got a e-mail saying registration pending moderator approval- same as years ago - then everything was fatal error messages after that. So, like the others, grateful you got things back up and running and kept backups. Guess you can disregard my 2nd registration - I used the same handle. And with that new link you provided that I have bookmarked, have logged in fine so far.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Robot_Quentin on September 18, 2017, 11:51:43 PM: Wow! I'd be lost without this forum!!!

I don't thing I've posted since 8/24 since I've been dealing with the great flood from Harvey down here in TX...

Glad to see it's up, and we appreciate all the mods hard work at preserving our history!! Thanks!!
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Josette on September 19, 2017, 05:25:10 AM: Quote from: patrickm on September 18, 2017, 05:53:17 PM
After Irma, I was in the dark figuratively and literally whatever was going on here. It was working fine til we lost power Sunday evening (and thanks again MB for your concern about us down here), then when we got power back up Tuesday,

So, apparently you were affected by the storm, but all right now. I hope all's well (or reasonably so) now!!
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 19, 2017, 06:05:39 PM: Quote from: patrickm on September 18, 2017, 05:53:17 PM
(and thanks again MB for your concern about us down here)

I'm very happy you all made it through safely. [hall2_smiley]
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 19, 2017, 06:10:51 PM: As you may or may not have noticed, all the forum's posts, with the exception of the ones we lost from those 18 days, are back on the forum. However, all the attachments, particularly on the Games boards are not working correctly yet because I have to reinstall a mod the forum was using for attachments back before our host lost a third of the database on us. Hopefully I won't have any problems reinstalling the mod, but we'll see. However, I won't be attempting it until a bit later this afternoon...

I'll post once attachments are behaving normally again...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 19, 2017, 11:59:13 PM: Most of the attachments seem to be working - but some are not. I have no idea why. [hall2_undecided] But then I had no idea why the current hoDS topic wasn't allowing directly quoting or modifying or new postings until I stumbled upon the reason today. Hopefully I'll be as lucky when it comes to figuring out why only some attachments are glitching...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 20, 2017, 04:48:55 PM: Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on September 19, 2017, 11:59:13 PM
Most of the attachments seem to be working - but some are not. I have no idea why. [hall2_undecided]

As some of you have discovered, it seems like all that attachments that are actually attached to a post are working - it's the copies that I and others have made for other posts (using the code like
Code: [Select]
[img width=320 height=240]http://www.dsboards.com/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=27735;attach=43815[/img]that aren't working for some very odd reason). But hopefully the answer to fixing that will hit me eventually...

Quote
But then I had no idea why the current hoDS topic wasn't allowing directly quoting or modifying or new postings until I stumbled upon the reason today.

And speaking of the hoDS topic, as I posted in it today (well, actually modified a test post to now say) I will be going back to recreate my missing posts. So don't fear that everything I did during the lost 18 days is gone forever...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Robot_Quentin on September 21, 2017, 10:15:34 PM: ded·i·ca·tion [dedəˈkāSH(ə)n/]

NOUN

1. the quality of being dedicated or committed to a task or purpose.

2. Mysterious Benefactor (Dark Shadows Forum moderator)

Thanks again MB!! I (we) appreciate all your efforts!! [salute]
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Josette on September 22, 2017, 04:57:26 AM: Well, if this were Facebook, I could click on "Love" for Robot_Quentin's post - that's great!!
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 22, 2017, 06:37:10 PM: [pointing-up] Thanks to everyone who has expressed their appreciation for the forum. [hall2_smiley] Things are probably close to being 90% back to normal, but there are still a few things that need fixing. But all in good time...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on September 26, 2017, 09:26:25 PM: I haven't posted any new set ups in the Games boards yet because I still don't know why posting copies of attachments isn't working. However, if I can't figure that out sooner rather than later, I'll simply begin posting brand new attachments, which is how things have been most of the time on the Games boards anyway...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Robot_Quentin on September 27, 2017, 10:01:08 PM: Quote from: Josette on September 22, 2017, 04:57:26 AM
Well, if this were Facebook, I could click on "Love" for Robot_Quentin's post - that's great!!

Thanks Josette!

In my younger days I gave my girlfriend a mock dictionary page from a Merriam-Webster I had Xeroxed.... I'd cut and pasted a typed entry for the word 'beautiful' with her name in it. [love10]
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on October 01, 2017, 05:47:56 AM: Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on September 26, 2017, 09:26:25 PM
I haven't posted any new set ups in the Games boards yet because I still don't know why posting copies of attachments isn't working. However, if I can't figure that out sooner rather than later, I'll simply begin posting brand new attachments, which is how things have been most of the time on the Games boards anyway...

The light finally went on [idea2] and I figured out what was wrong. I have no idea how it got changed because as far as I can tell all the forum's other permissions (which are stored in the database) were transferred intact. But no matter, I've corrected the problem and now all copies of attachments that have been added in posts other than the ones they're specifically attached to should be displaying. (But if you come across any that aren't, please point them out.)

And the best news is that I will be posting new set ups in the Games boards sooner rather than later...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Uncle Roger on October 01, 2017, 01:44:46 PM: What a nice surprise to wake up to this morning. The Halloween theme is always a favorite. And it appears that we're just as about back to normal as well!! 👍👍👍👍👍
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on October 02, 2017, 05:06:57 PM: The first new batch of set ups/captures have been posted to "Complete This Phrase / Fill In The Blank(s) - 1840/1841" and "Caption This! - 1840/1841".
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Uncle Roger on October 09, 2017, 06:43:55 PM: The "stay logged in" seems to be back up and running.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: MagnusTrask on October 09, 2017, 07:38:31 PM: Yes, Thanks VERY much MB, for everything! [candle_in_skull_2] [skull_winks] Including those!
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on October 09, 2017, 07:58:25 PM: It's funny, when I first come here, it doesn't look like I'm logged in - but as soon as I click on the login button (the one to the right of "forever", not the one in the main menu) I'm logged in without having to enter my username or password. I have no idea why that works or why that's required, but I'm not complaining. And if others come here and are logged in without even having to click that login button, that's even better. Though if that is the case, I have no idea why "stay logged in" is working for them and not me and others...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on October 09, 2017, 08:02:25 PM: Quote from: MagnusTrask on October 09, 2017, 07:38:31 PM
Yes, Thanks VERY much MB, for everything! [candle_in_skull_2] [skull_winks] Including those!

And more of the Halloween smileys will be showing up before too long, including one of your all-time favs:

[female_skull][female_skull][female_skull][female_skull][female_skull][female_skull]

Also, after last year's Halloween I found some new Halloween smileys, so hopefully I can track them down on my hard drive and install them too...
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Josette on October 10, 2017, 07:16:01 AM: Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on October 09, 2017, 07:58:25 PM
It's funny, when I first come here, it doesn't look like I'm logged in - but as soon as I click on the login button (the one to the right of "forever", not the one in the main menu) I'm logged in without having to enter my username or password. I have no idea why that works or why that's required, but I'm not complaining. And if others come here and are logged in without even having to click that login button, that's even better. Though if that is the case, I have no idea why "stay logged in" is working for them and not me and others...

That's how it's been working for me since this happened. I have to click "login" each time, but then it works without actually doing it. I thought Uncle Roger's post indicated that it was fixed, but since I was now logged in, I couldn't test it. This was in Firefox. So, I went to Chrome and there I had to actually log in. Perhaps it's the browser remembering it after the first time and not this site.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on October 10, 2017, 05:07:16 PM: Oh, it's definitely the browsers. When you first login, the forum sends your browser a cookie, and whenever you come here again, the browser looks at the cookie to see if you set the "stay logged in" feature. If so, you're already logged in. But for some reason the browsers aren't correctly interpreting what in the cookie or what's in the cookie can't be correctly interpreted until after some of us click on that login button. It's quite strange.
Title: Re: The Great Crash of 2017!
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on December 01, 2017, 10:03:25 PM: I discovered something interesting today: if when you come here you appear not to be logged in even though you've logged in the "stay logged in" option, not only will clicking on the "Login" button at the top right of the header image (above the snowmen) get you logged in, but simply clicking on the "Home" button in the main menu will as well. Why? Who knows? But why should we argue with what works? [santa_wink]