Thanks for getting us all back up and running. Very appreciative.

Mike

As most of you already know the site experienced a hard drive failure at the server company. This happens as things get older! We all can relate to that. The current issue we are seeing is related to being on a new updated drive and server and the forum being a little behind the times possibly a .PHP and or MySQL conflict.

Rest assured the data and files are all safe and I have already contracted a coder/vBulletin expert to do the necessary corrections and fixes to bring the web site up to more current standards and keeping the same colors and options.

We can go to the most recent version, but we will lose the gallery and all of the images.

I believe the MySQL issue was fixed for now. Let TommyP know if you have any issues

David

So is vdf running on a physical server? If it is, it really should be moved to a provider who can put it on a virtual server. If vdf is on a virtual server and was brought down by a drive crash, then you need to find a better hosting provider. This should not happen in a virtual hosting environment. If vdf is actually running on a physical server the privet of a virtual server will be much cheaper and that should warrant the move if nothing else.

Able to get around on the website no issues.

But FYI - it is slower loading then before for me

I'm finding this to be the same for me. I'll let tommyp know about the slow loading.

-Mark

The site has always been on a shared server. The hard drive crash is something I have experienced before with a smaller hosting company. Albeit a rare occurrence. There might be more to the story not reported to the customers. You know what I'm sayin'? :)

A larger hosting company such as GoDaddy, Host Monster or others would have fail safe options in place. Economics has always been a concern for me and why we are on a shared server. It is less then half the price.

On that note, the forum has never solicited money for server fees, Google ads, paid ads or sponsorships or other means to create revenue. I could have, but never chose to go down that path. I always thought that would taint the integrity of what the web site was about. It can lead to issues, especially if a paying sponsor becomes the talking point on a post. That can get ugly.

Doing the math, almost 18 years, average $50 a month. Donations might be $50 a year average. Some more, some less. Maybe one year 2 or 3 months were covered. I appreciate that support and never solicited money and I'm not asking for it now.

I do have a lengthy history document I prepared back in April going over a similar scenario that just happened :) It goes over all of the history from the beginning and I ask the members to ponder our future together. A boring read for sure, but it is the history of this web site!

More soon as I get closer to the bigger changes and pending updates. Send any issues to TommyP, we are in direct phone and text communication often.

Most hosted server companies use some sort of RAID system so that multiple hard drive failures won't bring down a server.

But if you were just renting hardware ,you never know exactly what you're gonna get in terms of redundancy.

Biggest hassle is the size of the drives these days that can literally take a day or two to rebuild after a single drive failure and if you have a second drive failure ,you data is toast

I have an 30 TB Seagate disk array and it can take days to add new disks to the NAS after a failure or upgrade.

Most big data centers are using software disk arrays that can withstand multiple disk failures.

Live and learn.

We will be working on the slow loading pages. I believe it has to do with the new drive and the CPU usage. I have contracted a vBulletin tech to upgrade and clean the site up for issues. He is evaluating things now. The goal is to upgrade to the newest possible version while maintaining the integrity of the forum. Then we will move the site to a new server and install the SSL to bring us up to current standards. No official timeline! Unfortunately, we will have to deal with the slow loading pages in the short term. I have a ticket in with the current server company.

Great news! Thanks

Yes Great job from all who got it back up and running.

Thanks