The Enid Blyton Society

I just wanted to drop in and let you all know what happened to the forums over the last few days.

Obviously they didn't work! Most of the database was fine except for one particular table named "posts," which not by coincidence contains all your posts and is naturally the biggest table in the entire database. Sometimes it breaks, crashes, etc, and normally it's a simple task of running a "repair table" command. Once I do that, the table is fixed in less than 5 seconds and everything is fine.

Once I was alerted to the problem on October 29th (thanks, Nigel!), I went ahead with the usual repair -- only this time it REALLY broke. I actually heard something rattle and snap, and a piiiing-zip! as a bolt flew off. Ooh, this was bad. I looked for the bolt but couldn't find it. Also, a serpentine belt had snapped, rendering the entire system useless. The only way to fix this was to bring in HostGator's tech support.

The problem was, HostGator had bigger problems to content with. They had an active "status update" post running to say that they were having MAJOR problems and many, many sites were down. This also meant they were deluged with tech support requests, and our forums problem would have to wait. I had no problem with their reasoning, and it was just a case of waiting patiently while they got around to it.

Today they responded with this:

Thank you for contacting HostGator! I understand that you are still seeing issues with one of your databases and you have not been able to repair it. First of all, I would like to offer my sincerest of apologies for the issues that have happened to your server.

I found that when this issue first started the system started automatically attempting to repair your database but it's likely that this was interrupted as we discovered the extent of the issue. I needed to remove the previous temporary file so that I could run the repair again. I've repaired that database but there is a possibility that there was some data loss during this process. If you find any missing posts or post information on your site then please reply back to let us know.

We have a backup of your database from Sat Oct 25 15:02:13 CDT 2014 which we could use to restore it if needed. Just let us know if this is needed.

As you can see, everything appears to be running normally now, and I believe we have more recent posts than October 25th, so I vote we leave things alone unless someone happens to come across something dodgy-looking. If there's a missing or corrupt post, then so be it. It's either that or we go back to the 25th.

Thanks for your patience. Now you can resume!

By the way, I noticed that this is not the first time we've had Halloween attacks:
http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/foru ... =13&t=5095

Thanks for the run-down of what happened, Keith. It's great to be able to access our lovely forum community once again - I missed it!

Thank you so much, Keith.

And thanks from me too, Keith
I tried a site that checks whether it is "just me"- and it said that it was. Then realized that it was only checking the ' first page'- the one that I too could get.
Thanks again.
Jack

Thanks for the information, Keith. It's great to see the Forums back up and running again!

Thanks for the explanation, Keith. It's great to be back.

Thanks indeed, Keith. It's great to be back!

Thanks Keith. It is lovely to see the lights back on here and everyone still around. I was having withdrawal symptons from this place.

Sorry - we've had problems with the forums again over the last hour, and with the main website too. All seems to be working at the moment but I've notified Keith in case anything needs doing.

Thanks Anita. I was on the site when it went strange - said too much traffic - or words to that effect. Fingers crossed it isn't a serious problem.

Yes, it said something about us exceeding the amount of traffic allowed per hour. I hope the problem isn't going to recur every hour!

I would think that HostGator needs to review this, as I am sure our traffic wasn't that high at the time it went down. I too emailed Keith with a PrtSc of the error message. If ever the forums go down for a prolonged time, I will post any updates on our Facebook page.

It's good to have an alternative route to find out what's happening - I found facebook useful last time too.

Great minds, Daisy! I suddenly though of our Facebook page, and thought that that might be more ethical than it appearing as if I was plugging my own forum, so I have edited the above post!

Anita Bensoussane wrote:Sorry - we've had problems with the forums again over the last hour, and with the main website too. All seems to be working at the moment but I've notified Keith in case anything needs doing.

Oh good - glad to know it wasn't my computer or wi-fi connection.

Anita Bensoussane wrote:Yes, it said something about us exceeding the amount of traffic allowed per hour. I hope the problem isn't going to recur every hour!

Is this a discussion forum, or the M25??