# Umm... subscribed threads go buh-bye?



## Goddess FallenAngel (Jun 30, 2004)

Is it just me, or did everyone's subscribed threads disappear?.... Without email notification, that's how I kept track of my pbp games....


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## Michael Morris (Jun 30, 2004)

Goddess FallenAngel said:
			
		

> Is it just me, or did everyone's subscribed threads disappear?.... Without email notification, that's how I kept track of my pbp games....




Mine are intact... Hmm...


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## Goddess FallenAngel (Jun 30, 2004)

Mine are gone... so are those of a PBP Mod I was talking to via AIM at the time....


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## Brother Shatterstone (Jun 30, 2004)

Spoony Bard said:
			
		

> Mine are intact... Hmm...



mine are gone and so are my folders... (as per my staff thread)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edit: All PbP Players are asked to see this thread so that we can get everyone the subscriptions to the threads that they need and desire.  

(link)


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## EricNoah (Jun 30, 2004)

same thing happened to at least one other poster...


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## Brother Shatterstone (Jun 30, 2004)

Goddess FallenAngel said:
			
		

> so are those of a PBP Mod I was talking to via AIM at the time....




:sigh: Wow, I don't even rank a user name anymore...


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## Goddess FallenAngel (Jun 30, 2004)

Hey, I didn't want to name names without permission, Bro.

It is letting me re-add the subscriptions, but I would like my old ones back....  (if possible, of course). 
It would take me forever to wade through gawd knows how many pages to find them to re-add them all.... *this sort of thing is why I hate computers*


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## buzz (Jun 30, 2004)

Mine are all gone, too.


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## Michael Morris (Jun 30, 2004)

Correction - my subscribed forums are present, but not my subscribed threads...

Ow.  Hmm...


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## Brother Shatterstone (Jun 30, 2004)

Goddess FallenAngel said:
			
		

> Hey, I didn't want to name names without permission, Bro.



No need to feel that way...   I'm here to help, you and them, so there going to need my name anyhow.  (Besides I'm low mod on the pole I can't get blamed for this.... hopefully.)



			
				Goddess FallenAngel said:
			
		

> It is letting me re-add the subscriptions.



hmm... none of my new posts have been added.  Let me try this one.


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## Dungannon (Jun 30, 2004)

Yup, all of mine are gone as well.  They were there an hour ago, but now..*poof*..nada.


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## Erekose13 (Jun 30, 2004)

not to add to the rucus, but mine are gone too.


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## Morrus (Jun 30, 2004)

Looks like we've had a major glitch, folks.  No idea what could have caused it, but everyone's subscribed threads have been deleted from the database.

Very odd.  I'm glad it was the subscribed threads table that got zapped, though and not, say, the threads table, or the members table...

I don't think there's anything I can do about it; the data is gone.  You'll have to re-add them manually.

There is possible a sunny side to it, though -- with these all deleted, switching on email notification again might actually be feasible.  It'll probably take months before the subscribed thread database rebuilds itself to the point where it's sending out as many emails as it was before, especially as many of those emails probably went to dead email accounts or to members who no longer post (and who therefore won't be likely to resubscribe).


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## Calinon (Jun 30, 2004)

Yes, mine have vanished as well, which is exceedingly unpleasant.


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## Dungannon (Jun 30, 2004)

That's our fearless leader, always looking for the bright side in a glitch.


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## Erekose13 (Jun 30, 2004)

glad i kept my sig post upto date, but thats a bummer.  and yes is a good thing that any other table did not go byebye.


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## Zhaneel (Jun 30, 2004)

Mine gone too!!!! *CRIES*

Zhaneel


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## James Heard (Jun 30, 2004)

I feel like someone has taken my ENWorld compass out and pulled it out by the roots. I mean, I carefully pruned those things all the time. Grr.


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## Brother Shatterstone (Jun 30, 2004)

All PbP Players are asked to see this thread so that we can get everyone the subscriptions to the threads that they need and desire.  

(link)


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## DrZombie (Jun 30, 2004)

Mine are gone too. Aaah well,  happens, as the governor of california so eloquently put it. Time to go looking for those threads.


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## BSF (Jun 30, 2004)

Ack!  Mine are gone too.  I had all of mine set to no notification as I generally used them to keep track of threads I wanted to keep up on.  Oh well, I can try to find some of those threads again.


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## Gez (Jun 30, 2004)

Morrus said:
			
		

> There is possible a sunny side to it, though -- with these all deleted, switching on email notification again might actually be feasible.  It'll probably take months before the subscribed thread database rebuilds itself to the point where it's sending out as many emails as it was before...




Maybe if you allow only the daily and weekly updates... That way, it won't mass email each time a post is made. And maybe the time when it sends the update can be set to the time when there are usually the least number of people browsing the board.


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## Ghostknight (Jun 30, 2004)

Well, I'm off to re-add my subs but Morrus, that silver lining you offer there- YES, I miss my email notifications!


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## Keia (Jun 30, 2004)

Mine are gone too.  Off to readd what I remember.

Keia


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## Clint (Jun 30, 2004)

Mine are gone, too (of course). I had many threads that I was saving for a rainy GM day. Ah well.

-Clint


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## Goddess FallenAngel (Jun 30, 2004)

Well, thanks for all the help, Morrus and Mods out there.  I am also glad that if something had to go, it was the subscribed threads.


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## Lela (Jun 30, 2004)

BarganagosdfwdsasddaCHEEEEEEEEEESEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dangit.  Aw, well.  Worse things have happened. . .


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## blargney the second (Jun 30, 2004)

Bummer - that hurt.


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## Robbert Raets (Jun 30, 2004)

Well, >BLEEP<!! Do you have any concept of the number of threads I hav- *had* subscribed to?!

 ...And I don't even _like_ email notification....


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## Olive (Jun 30, 2004)

Oh poo.


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## kirinke (Jun 30, 2004)

whew. i thought it was something i did.... 
heheh. not so bad for me.
all of my games i put on my favorite's list for quick reference.   
but still annoying. i have to look up my giant chicken thread again. gah


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## Brother Shatterstone (Jun 30, 2004)

Robbert Raets said:
			
		

> Well, >BLEEP<!! Do you have any concept of the number of threads I hav- *had* subscribed to?!




I don't know but I use to edit mine down when I had 200* or 300*...  

* Morrus, don't hate me... At the least 80% of them where dead.


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## FoxWander (Jul 1, 2004)

Hmm, just noticed this "Eep!"-inducing glitch myself. As has been said though, better that dying than something vital. As I only used it to keep track of nifty threads (never used e-mail notification) I think I'll ease what small burden mine may have caused on the server and just track them via a Word doc full of hyperlinks. No server space and I'll always have a copy should this happen again.


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## Joshua Randall (Jul 1, 2004)

*Morrus* - suggest you change the default to "no e-mail notification", which will drastically cut down on pointless e-mail sends.


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## Dimwhit (Jul 1, 2004)

Joshua Randall said:
			
		

> *Morrus* - suggest you change the default to "no e-mail notification", which will drastically cut down on pointless e-mail sends.



 That's an excellent idea. I know I prefer NOT to get the email notification. I'm used to it this way. So it would greatly reduce the number of emails if people have to specifically request them.


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## Greybar (Jul 1, 2004)

> There is possible a sunny side to it, though -- with these all deleted, switching on email notification again might actually be feasible.




Any chance that the system could automatically remove subscriptions to threads that are more than X days without a reply?
Would that even help?

john
p.s. yeah, mine are gone too.


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## kirinke (Jul 1, 2004)

I still can't resubscribe to my threads! i mean i post they show up in the forum, but they don't show up in subscriptions!   Could a mod please look at my account and see what's wrong.


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## kirinke (Jul 2, 2004)

okies... just see if this works...


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## Brother Shatterstone (Jul 2, 2004)

kirinke said:
			
		

> Could a mod please look at my account and see what's wrong.




I showed kirinke over AIM how to change the default setting on subscriptions to on, subscription no email, so this issue is has been resolved.


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## Orius (Jul 2, 2004)

Joshua Randall said:
			
		

> *Morrus* - suggest you change the default to "no e-mail notification", which will drastically cut down on pointless e-mail sends.




Ditto.  I always put it to no e-mail, because I don't want to get spammed.  Setting it as a default would make things easier for me.

Well, ok I'm lazy too.


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## RuminDange (Jul 3, 2004)

Count me in on the loss...... 

What no backup of the database?  That is bad.   

RD


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## Michael Morris (Jul 4, 2004)

RuminDange said:
			
		

> Count me in on the loss......
> 
> What no backup of the database?  That is bad.
> 
> RD




The database is backed up weekly - on the new server it will probably back up nightly since executing a backup takes a considerable amount of processor space.

While this was a severe glitch - it doesn't stand up there with the kind of crash mandating a reset to backup.  Remember that ENWorld, at peak times, gets a couple hundred posts an hour.  Any reset would lose a lot of data.


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## RuminDange (Jul 4, 2004)

Spoony Bard said:
			
		

> The database is backed up weekly - on the new server it will probably back up nightly since executing a backup takes a considerable amount of processor space..




Nice to know it is at least backed up weekly.  And I know how much backups take to run....at work ours takes about 6 hours nightly for about 8 servers.



			
				Spoony Bard said:
			
		

> While this was a severe glitch - it doesn't stand up there with the kind of crash mandating a reset to backup.  Remember that ENWorld, at peak times, gets a couple hundred posts an hour.  Any reset would lose a lot of data.



Understand, I was not referring to a complete restore of the database back to before the qlitch, but a recovery of the lost table where the subscriptions are kept.  But restoration, no matter how minor is a time consuming process in itself.  Hopefully this isn't a sign of a more serious glitch isn't waiting to happen.  

So what's the latest on the new server?


RD


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## woodelf (Jul 7, 2004)

Morrus said:
			
		

> Looks like we've had a major glitch, folks.  No idea what could have caused it, but everyone's subscribed threads have been deleted from the database.
> 
> Very odd.  I'm glad it was the subscribed threads table that got zapped, though and not, say, the threads table, or the members table...
> 
> I don't think there's anything I can do about it; the data is gone.  You'll have to re-add them manually.




If i could find them--most of them were long-since-dead threads. I think i'll stop using the subscriptions to bookmark interesting threads for future reference, and rely on Mozilla's bookmarks, instead. At least until you figure out what happened--if you don't know what happened, you can't know it won't happen again. Problem is, Mozilla doesn't always save new bookmarks until it quits, so if it crashes, i lose all new additions. Which wouldn't be so bad except that my system and Mozilla are generally stable enough that i can have the webbrowser open for days, or even weeks, at a time, and i forget that the bookmarks i've added in the last few hours can get lost. And it's really annoying to have to restart Mozilla periodically, just in case it might crash.

Anyway, chalk this up as another problem with web-based BBSes vs. a decent interface. Damn, i miss UseNet. Plus, Google and other off-site sources backup UseNet, so we're not dependent on one server. Oh well, i seem to be outvoted by the Internet-using public.

As for using the backup subscription table: i'm all for it. I'd much rather loose all my subscriptions of, say, the last week, than the older ones. The new ones can be trivially re-added, the old ones will be virtually impossible to resubscribe to (i'd first have to remember what they were on, before i could even usefully do a search).


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## woodelf (Jul 7, 2004)

Greybar said:
			
		

> Any chance that the system could automatically remove subscriptions to threads that are more than X days without a reply?
> Would that even help?




Ack! No! I [used to] use subscriptions to keep track of inactive threads--if it's still active, it'll pop up on the first page or two, and i can find it easily if my subscription evaporates. It's the ones that nobody has posted to in months, but that i either still haven't finished reading, or that had really cool stuff i'll want to reference again in the future, that i need the subscriptions for. 

So, if i subscribe, does the search function include the ability to find all threads i've posted to? That'd probably re-locate at least half of my subscribed threads.


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## Joshua Randall (Jul 9, 2004)

Joshua Randall said:
			
		

> *Morrus* - suggest you change the default to "no e-mail notification", which will drastically cut down on pointless e-mail sends.



I can see that my suggestion was blissfully ignored. :\


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## Joshua Randall (Jul 9, 2004)

woodelf said:
			
		

> So, if i subscribe, does the search function include the ability to find all threads i've posted to? That'd probably re-locate at least half of my subscribed threads.



Yes. You can use the *Find posts by user* aspect of the search function to, uhh, y'know, find all the posts by a certain user.  Just put your own name in there and away you go.


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## DaveStebbins (Jul 10, 2004)

Joshua Randall said:
			
		

> Yes. You can use the *Find posts by user* aspect of the search function to, uhh, y'know, find all the posts by a certain user.  Just put your own name in there and away you go.



Right. Or you can just click on their user name next to their post and a menu drops down which includes "Find more posts by" the user. I'm assuming that's also one of the community supporter benefits (unless it works for you without being one, in which case, you're welcome  ).


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