Outage

[F6T]

With this latest outage, I actually got some work done, spent more time with my wife and little girl and practiced the piano.

Thanks ALOT to all involved....seriously.

[tex]

Thanks a lot for all the hard work admin team etc, very appreciated by me and all other FF members.

60 hours felt like 60 days.

tex

[Perko]

Thanks for all the efforts guys. I can now have some sanity back...

[The Stylist]

Great work guy's, and such a huge effort to get the site back up deserves an huge applause.

I was having withdrawal symptoms for a while there.

[Road_Warrior]

Thank Christ (and the team) for that. I was actually forced to do some work at work the past couple of days.

[Burnout]

Thanks as usual to the Admin Team & Mods, much appreciated, much.

[Mr Hardware]

As a windows server admin I am positively apopletic that your techs (hosting company?) should have ever let such a cluster of failures occur.

Good job AFF Admin team, as I know from first hand experience how frustratingly difficult it is to try and recover a server from a mish-mash of failed assurances by people entrusted to the aspects of correct server maintenance.

[Iggypoppin']

I actually had to pay attention at work, toilet breaks where boring and less frequent...

[Coyote mk3]

Thanks very much to all involved in the return of this great forum.

Originally Posted by FPV8U

Life has been sadly boring without AFF, which really means i have bigger issues i guess

Sadly, I was thinking exactly the same thing lol

[Road Games]

Ok call me an idiot, but is this a maintenance thing that is out of our hands or a situation we can actually grab by the scruff of the neck?

We have 49,455 members yeah?
And on average we get 800 odd viewing /posting of a night??

So what if all those that could actually contribute, chucked in $1000 instead of DM token membership?

Hear me out... those that according to recent posts couldn't actually live without their AFF fix , put their money where their fingers are..

I,m not rich by any means , but if it helps avoid what we just went through- lets stand up and be counted as a team !

Ooorah!!

I for one would appreciate your thoughts Russ ....
Daz....

[carnige]

was a little frustrating not being able to get on lol. but not as frustrating as the time u guys had fix this mess all up... looks like a good effet now crack a beer and relax lol and thx for geting things back up and running

[Iggypoppin']

Originally Posted by DAZZLER351

Ok call me an idiot, but is this a maintenance thing that is out of our hands or a situation we can actually grab by the scruff of the neck?

We have 49,455 members yeah?
And on average we get 800 odd viewing /posting of a night??

So what if all those that could actually contribute, chucked in $1000 instead of DM token membership?

Hear me out... those that according to recent posts couldn't actually live without their AFF fix , put their money where their fingers are..

I,m not rich by any means , but if it helps avoid what we just went through- lets stand up and be counted as a team !

Ooorah!!

I for one would appreciate your thoughts Russ ....
Daz....

That's a mortgage payment or two for some, half a months wage for me and a lot of money for those who are well off, regardless of financial status now.
I appreciate your passion for aff(I love it like I love beer) but I donate money that I can afford, 1000$ is a fortune for me and I don't think that it would be necessary for the site, even though I'm sure the money would be appreciated!

[Mad Maxine]

I'd be asking some questions about the professionalism of your server provider (sure you already have done that, though, and possibly taught them a few Aussie swear words at the same time). Anyway, it has prompted me to donate, if nothing else, it might help if everyone chipped in their preferred amount now so the Admins can actually see how much we all appreciate their work.

MM

[carnige]

lol iggypoppin im the same i cant see y any one pay $1000 for a fourm lol u can buy your own server tower and run it ya self for that kind of $$$ pluss this fourm has adds and sponcers so i cant see them being too much out of pocket. hard drives fail, nothing u can do about it. i think the guys did a good job salvaging every thing like they did.

[GT]

Russell has given you all the technical lowdown on what has occurred this week but there is a huge personal story too.

There is no special admin team that sorts this side of things but one man who tirelessly spends hours/days in front of a computer screen calmly (yes, he rarely loses his rag) trying to make it a great place for you all to visit. We were very lucky to have already hooked up with Chris who stepped up to the plate the moment Russ contacted him and these two men have performed what we thought yesterday was going to be impossible. This was no simple fix and it has been quite a distressing week.

Russell has had about 3 hours sleep since the outage was discovered and has worked around the clock sacrificing everything else in his life. You could not find a 'leader' as dedicated and self sacrificing with a love for this Forum, that some may find hard to imagine.

I am full of admiration and pride sweetheart.

GT

[DJL351]

Ah yes Murphy.... nasty bloke - I call for him to be banned from the site from now on.

Russ, any one of those issues could be seen as unlucky - having 3 issues plus the stupidity of a couple of yanks... that in my book equates to a large amount of swearing, late nights, early mornings, sore eyes and an aching head.

Some will struggle to understand the depths of hell you guys will have gone through - Thank you does not seem to cover it, but it's all that I can think of.

As for Daz's thoughts. I understand where you are coming from, but restricting the site to paid members only could see a massive drop in new members coming on.
I'm sure the Admin team would not turn away a donation of any kind or amount, but in the same breath they would not want to see the growth slow (or even stop) by implementing a payment system.


Anyway - I raise my glass to you Russ.


D

[AUIIPURSUIT]

i didnt realize how much i miss the AFF until i couldnt have it. it went down when i really needed ford advice the week before too. was quite agonising.

This is a mammoth sponge of information, and all members are truely grateful for the enormous salvage work you have just about completed.

thanks

[russellw]

The hosted sites (aufalcon/b-series/ozecruisers) should all be up and working now. Haven't tested them thoroughly so if there are any issues then let me know.

We already had plans in place after the relocation to install a new server of our own and we will be doing this but even though that server is configured with a high degree of redundancy, there is no escaping the risks associated with a situation like this one where the whole thing turns pear shaped.

The cost of running a forum of this nature is high, we use extensive quantities of high speed bandwidth and one of the things that will be reviewed as part of this process is the financial structure.

We are supported by a loyal sponsor base and our 190 Donating Members and this has been sufficient to meet our hosting costs, licensing costs as well as support our events.

We had saved enough over the last couple of years to spend the almost $20,000 to buy and build the new server and one of the things we will be doing is looking at options for external back-up on top of the RAID array, hot spare disks and tape drive that box is configured with. These things all incur a cost and (as always) it will be a balancing act between what we'd really like and what is financially viable.

Cheers
Russ

[Professor Farnsworth]

yes the myth that IT is based on logic is again dispelled. Putting HDD's in the freezer will sometimes restore them long enough to pull data from, not that this info really helps right now.

thanks to all anyway, i did go slightly (more) mad in the site's absence

[deesun]

Geez, I had to say more than the cursory "hello" to the missus for 2 whole days. Anyhoo I'm not one for bigger avatars or space etc but I would like to thank the boys so i theres an address I can have a couple of cartons sent to then PM me and it will be done. Thanks again guys.

[SpoolMan]

Russ and Chris (cs123) thank-you very much, hope you both get a good sleep in..

[cs123]

well, it's been an interesting few days.

Those members that have worked in IT production support would have some idea of how fickle the IT gods can be sometimes. What happened was back luck x 3.

In the end I think Russell willed it back into existence.

There has been some positives too. We now know what is required to further improve recoverability of the site.

[buggerlugs]

Well done Russ, I'd give you a rep point, but you have to many already ya greedy bugger !!

[sgt_doofey]

Well done guys. Stellar effort by all involved. Not only Russ and cs123, but their family supporting them in the background as well. Great effort all.
Cheers,
Sam.

[Riksta]

Originally Posted by GT

Russell has had about 3 hours sleep since the outage was discovered and has worked around the clock sacrificing everything else in his life. You could not find a 'leader' as dedicated and self sacrificing with a love for this Forum, that some may find hard to imagine.

That's dedication and it is awesome to know that the people running the show are as dedicated as the users, and sacrifice like this to get us all back up and running again. Thanks Russell, and Chris.

Originally Posted by russellw

The hosted sites (aufalcon/b-series/ozecruisers) should all be up and working now. Haven't tested them thoroughly so if there are any issues then let me know.

aufalcon.com domain still hasn't been returned to us, we still need to go to aufalcon.com.au to get there. I think it was Casper in the aufalcon.com section was working on this one though.

Originally Posted by Professor Farnsworth

Putting HDD's in the freezer will sometimes restore them long enough to pull data from, not that this info really helps right now.

I don't think I've ever heard that one, but if you're serious, that 500gigger that doesn't want to work any more is going straight in there, see if I can recover some lost downloads!

[cs123]

Originally Posted by Professor Farnsworth

yes the myth that IT is based on logic is again dispelled. Putting HDD's in the freezer will sometimes restore them long enough to pull data from, not that this info really helps right now.

Hard disks are like pot plants. You must speak to them in a soothing voice, and never yell.

http://videosift.com/video/Why-not-t...our-disk-array

[wrongwaynorris]

Don't pretend to understand 99% of that but do understand the trmendous efforts by all concerned especially Russell & Chris , a heartfelt and sincere thanks to you all . Evidently some time in the past I had become a father again , see there is some advantage in this outage .

[foxtrot3]

Hi. There must be times with this forum when Russell thinks he has had his path crossed by a black cat on Friday the 13th as he stepped under a ladder and yet he bounces back better than ever. Congrats to the IT team. MD

[Jason[98.EL]]

I think in apreciation for the work that cs123 has done over the last few days he should have a contributing member tag under his name not just the donating member

Thoughts on this one ?

Jason

p.s thanks guys and i am still thinking of something that the member base here can do as a thankyou thing

[Geez Louise]

I am so glad that you posted in here cs123. Thank you for all your hard efforts and the time you have put in helping Russellw get the site back up and running.

Some well deserved and earned rep points have come your way

Cheers
Coll