FORUM PROBLEMS

Recently the Forum suffered a major setback in that one of the DB tables corrupted and caused no end of problems for us in trying to get things back up and running.

OK stage one... use the backup files.
Tried that and found that the more recent backup files were also corrupted. Some of the corrupted files were to do with the Forum and some to do with other elements of the site.

The best backup we had was right back to the end of 2004 which for us is a real disaster as so much information has now been lost.
We tried to use this file to restore the Forum with but that also had problems.

We (Gina and I) have spent the last three days trying to rebuild the old data files but although we had the actual posts right up to the last couple of weeks we had no way of tying the posts in with the usernames. Today we uploaded the file we had been working on (which had over 4000 manual entries by the way) and discovered that although the posts were there they were linked to the incorrect username. You can imagine the comeback we would get if that situation were allowed to remain so a final decision was made.

The Forum will have to re-commence from the start. Yes it’s a killer, for you and for us, but we have no other sensible option.

One thing we have done is opened a new ISP account and the site will be transferred over to the new server in the coming days. Our current ISP have been good to us for the last few years but have let things slip a bit on the reliability and support side of things. So they will have to go.

I guess our regular posters will start posting again and hopefully the place will liven up once more.

On our part we will try and make sure that the backups we have are functional so that we will never lose this amount of data again.

Before anyone fires off at us about this mess… consider this. We run the site using our free time. We maintain the site in between offshore jobs. We are not Web Techs or IT specialists but a couple of offshore workers that started a small website about ROV’s a few years back. It grew into something bigger than either of us anticipated.
We do our best but that is only as good as the support we get from our ISP and the members of our site.

Once again we would like to express our thanks to all of you that do post in the Forum regularly and to Ron (of Ron’s ROV links) who has continued to add to the site content. Ron is the main industry news contributor.

So lets look to the future and not dwell on the past… Hopefully things will get back to normal again.

Best regards
James & Gina McLauchlan

Member Joined: May 15, 2006

Well James I think (and I'm sure most orthers will agree ) that both you and the little lady are doing a top job

all the best

Paddy Graham

Thanks Paddy

Much appreciated.

Member Joined: Apr 23, 2006

Just like to say I agree with Paddy there, thanks for putting your time to the site.
Cheers
nigeld

ROVworld Webteam Joined: Dec 26, 2003 Location: Scotland

Yup well done for digging into your drinkingtime for sorting it all out -)

Member Joined: Jun 05, 2004

Congrats on the hard labour to put it right ,
A standing ovation for the work done ,
looking forward to some more interesting debates

Member Joined: Nov 18, 2004

Your doing a grand job boys!

I’ve never contributed to this forum before but I have followed it since I left the industry a couple of years ago. You’re doing a great job of keeping me up to date of what’s going on out there.

Glad to see its back.

Member Joined: Sep 03, 2006

I've Missed the Site, Follwed it for ages (2yrs now) , but never participated. it's a Wealth of information and been a help for me, even though i'm just getting started in this area of the industry,
(bit long in the teeth these days (false))

I'm sure more of the people who contributed to the site will be back,

Again, Many thanks to Admin/Mods Gina & James Very Happy

CheeRS......Ken

Member Joined: May 14, 2006 Location: Norway

Sorry to hear that the forum data was lost. I am sure you have done what's in your power to do, so that will have to go on the "shit happens"-account.

Keep up the good work, I know a lot of people in the industry are using this forum and especially for new people in the industry, it has been an good source of information.

By the way, would it be possible to upload your old backup file (with the 4000 entries) as a text file, Access or something? That way the information would still be accessable, never mind the username problem.

ROVworld Admin Joined: Dec 12, 2003 Location: Portugal

Hi slayer

I have been going through the text file and adding useful posts back into the the forum in the correct section (or what I think the correct section should be). These posts from the 'lost' forum all start with This is one carried over from the old forum makes them a bit easier to point out...I do add the users name when I have it available, but people out there who post usually know which post was theirs.

Amongst the 4,300 posts there are a lot of posts which are now out of date or that are padding, I have been filtering these posts out and putting useful information back into the forum.

If at the end of my reposting, if there is still the request for the text file I could still add the text file to the download section.

All the best
Gina

Member Joined: Dec 26, 2003

Yeeyubbadubbadoo !

Well done James & Gina Shocked

Nice to see it's all back, fine n well. Glad its not me facing having to fixit! Confused

Bravo!

Doug

Member Joined: Apr 04, 2006

Nice one James I was starting to get hassle off the missus for complaining about pay and life but now I can back to doing it here hooray!! Laughing