IT'S ALIVE!

[AluminumHaste]

And we're back, for now. Wtf is going o in?

[stumpy]

from what was posted about 12 hours ago but seems to have gone is the harddrive is on its last legs and needs to be replaced, so site will be down again for a while, while everything get migrated to new harddrive.

[Goldwell]

Taaaki posted about it in an announcement

 

The outage over the last week was caused by server disk issues, leading to some filesystem corruption and DB issues. While I have recovered the system, the disk is likely to cause further issues in the future. Fortunately and unfortunately, the hosting provider will be replacing the disk at 19:00 UTC on the 18th of June. I will be disabling services (forums, wiki, bugtracker, svn, etc.) at least an hour before this so that I can take final backups of changes since my previous backup. There will be another extended downtime as I will need to rebuild the OS and import all the backups. I will prioritise the forums and main website and bring further services up as soon as I am able. Apologies for the inconvenience.

I dont think the forums have ever been down for so long before.

[peter_spy]

Almost a whole week, end on end. I don't know the details about hosting provider, but if that's a professional hosting company, the response and resolution time is just downright terrible

 

On our local Thief forum, we have like 1% users in comparison to what you see here, and we have a yearly fundraiser for hosting. We always get the required amount, usually with some surplus for next year or two. We did have a downtime once or twice, but never for such a long time. Maybe it's time to talk about new hosting provider? I'd be happy to contribute those few bucks a year to have a peace of mind and stable access to all the knowledge we have here, both on forums and wiki.

Edited June 18, 2019 by peter_spy

[taaaki]

It wasn't the the hosting provider's fault since we weren't technically down for all that time. I had kept the services offline to reduce disk usage while I ensured that we had full offsite backups of everything (and having services online would also invalidate some of those backups). Getting the backups off the server took a lot longer than expected. If they had intervened and replaced the disk immediately, we likely would have lost a fair bit.

[Destined]

I am just glad, we are back again. And thanks taaaki for you work in keeping everything running! It is really appreaciated!

[demagogue]

Thanks to taaaki and anyone else that got us back in working order!

This is definitely a case of not realizing how much a thing means to you until it's gone.

[lowenz]

Thanks to taaaki and anyone else that got us back in working order!

This is definitely a case of not realizing how much a thing means to you until it's gone.

Simply as that! (or until it was stolen is more contextually proper here )

Edited June 18, 2019 by lowenz

[Petike the Taffer]

It wasn't the the hosting provider's fault since we weren't technically down for all that time. I had kept the services offline to reduce disk usage while I ensured that we had full offsite backups of everything (and having services online would also invalidate some of those backups). Getting the backups off the server took a lot longer than expected. If they had intervened and replaced the disk immediately, we likely would have lost a fair bit.

 

Best wishes for the replacement, taaaki. Having read this post and your other announcement on the forums, it seems you've gone about the backups methodically. I'd rather wait than have maintenance jump the gun on necessary replacements, so good luck with all the work this evening ! Hopefully we'll be back soon enough, once you finish all the necessary maintenance.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Petike the Taffer

[esme]

Thanks for all the hard work getting the forum back for us

[grayman]

Thanks for your hard work, taaaki.

 

Is there a financial burden we need to contribute to?

[AluminumHaste]

Thanks for your hard work, taaaki.

 

Is there a financial burden we need to contribute to?

 

Yes it's been offered before, but I don't remember what happened to that one. I'll contribute np.

[Jedi_Wannabe]

Thanks a million. Really appreciate all the efforts!

And ditto to what Grayman said, yall got a PayPal for donations?

[taaaki]

I need to investigate newer server options, particularly ones with dual disks in some kind of RAID 1 / ZFS setup. Or go with VPS type options. But it's likely that these are going to be more expensive (current option is $29pm) to get the specs we need (disk space space is usually the issue here), so I may need to have a look in the donations thing again. I just remember that PayPal was a bit tricky in terms of tax & currency exchange regulations where I live. But for now I'm going to focus on getting this server stable, then I can find a new provider or hosting option and migrate services piece-by-piece.

[taaaki]

Okay. So an update is in order.

1. The server's disk was replaced on Tuesday and I am busy reinstalling everything. As I make progress, I will try to bring services back online as and when they are ready.
2. As an interim measure, I have www.thedarkmod.com, forums.thedarkmod.com, and mirrors.thedarkmod.com up and running on one of my other servers.
   1. Are there any other services that are needed somewhat urgently? I suspect that we may want the missions list back for the in-game mission downloader. Thoughts?
3. You will have noticed that the forums look rather different. I wasn't able to bring the forums over exactly as there were before due to incompatibilities with the newer versions of PHP and the old version of IP.Board that we were running. This will likely also be an issue when I setup the original server with updated OS and package versions. I've now upgraded the forums software from IP.Board 3.x to IP.Board 4.x and there are some significant changes that affect themes and other functionality.
   1. The new version doesn't seem to be as flexible in terms of configuration, so I'll have to figure out how to match the old setup as best I can.
   2. The theme and layout will need to be redone for IP.Board 4, but I won't have time for that this week. The default theme will just have to do for now.
   3. I'm not sure that everything is setup 100% correctly on the temp server, so expect some issues to crop up (e.g. URL rewriting currently isn't working properly).
4. The forum software update was long overdue (old version went out of support months ago, meaning no security updates), so I will likely not attempt to get the old version working again. Please be patient while I try get the forums back to their former glory.

[peter_spy]

I'd say TDM Wiki is as important as TDM forums, at least to mappers. I don't mind different forum layout or functions. Some dark theme would be nice, as this one is pure white.

[Jedi_Wannabe]

I second the Wiki. Crucial for newbie mappers like myself. So long as the forum works I am happy; functionality before aesthetics.

Thanks again for all the diligent work. Seeing a plan laid out I'm sure helps to ease a lot of troubled minds. I for one felt lost for a little bit there lol.

 

Edit: I actually saw a Twitch streamer yesterday playing Tears of St. Lucia, chatted with him a bit and he said he just got the mod but only had the first two missions. I explained he stumbled upon TDM at a dark time and he ought to keep a close eye on the site. I suspect if you get the mission list up, he'll stream a bunch more. Thought it'd be good exposure, that was my first time seeing anybody stream TDM live on Twitch so I was surprised.

Edited June 20, 2019 by Jedi_Wannabe

[chakkman]

wow... this looks... so different...

 

New forum software is always good though.

[grayman]

I think we need some grime patches applied to the forum.

 

[taaaki]

1 hour ago, grayman said:

I think we need some grime patches applied to the forum.

 

I'll at least see if I can find a dark theme that I can install while I sort out the proper DarkMod theme. I can't stand all the white.

In other news, I've got the wiki and missions list up and running 

[chakkman]

The forum already looks and handles much better on smartphone.

[Goldwell]

1 hour ago, taaaki said:

I'll at least see if I can find a dark theme that I can install while I sort out the proper DarkMod theme. I can't stand all the white.

In other news, I've got the wiki and missions list up and running 

Thank you!

 

I was coming to ask the same thing. Darkmode on this new format would be perfect for mobile too!

[demagogue]

Thanks for everything you're doing taaaki.

While it will be nice when we get a dark theme, I'm just happy we have our forum back.

Take the time you need to do things right, of course.

[OrbWeaver]

At least one good thing has come out of this unexpected forced upgrade is that we no longer have to use the most buggy, user-unfriendly and just plain garbage WYSIWYG post editor that the internet has ever seen.

This one actually seems to work well.

[Goldwell]

I don't know if you're aware but I noticed youtube videos are no longer embedded in forum posts anymore.

 

I understand you have a lot on your plate, but would you please mind taking a look at that when you can?