Ok, I opened the gates. We are as we were on 4/20/2021. Please report anything odd or broken. There is still some work to do but let’s see how this goes. -Chef

I decided to tackle the task of trying to fix the forums on the new server. I really have no clue what I am doing but I figured if I fucked anything up too bad I could just reup the backup and try again. Was able to change some of the software and after a few changes, bam. Shit just started working, mostly. I am still getting some minor errors and weird intermittent 503 errors that I can’t explain so I am leaving the board off for now. I have some shit to do tomorrow but I will work on this when I can and hope to open it back up for everyone to test tomorrow evening? I hope?
Remember, we still lost almost two months of posts. The board should be like it was on 4/20 so it’s not all high fives and ass grabs. Sorry about that. =| More soon. -Chef

Plan A was to clone the drive. The hard drive is apparently clicking away and won’t boot so that it out of the question. My April backup is good but my May backup was fucked up. And all this happened while doing my July. So at best I MIGHT be able to restore from April 20th, 2021. Maybe.

So on to Plan B…I was able to secure a “new to us server” today. She is pre-owned, but much newer than our old one. Old one was a 4 core/4 thread 2.6GHz, 4GB RAM and a SATA drive. New one is 4 core/8 thread 3.5GHz, 16GB RAM, and it’s an SSD. It is also $30/mo cheaper. So server is up and running. I did a test restore of http://www.fundp4tm.com from a backup and it seems to be working so the basic IP propagation and shit should be working. Feel free to give that site a real world test. I am going to need it if I can pull off step two below. =P

I appear to also have restored the P4TM account as well, I think. It is broke as fuck but I swear (I think, lol) everything is there as it was on 4/20. Database appears in tack at that point. But to be honest that all was the easy part. Now I have to find a person trustworthy and discreet enough for me to allow root level site and server access and is a server / vBulletin expert willing to get us running in exchange for legal tender. I will be honest, as much progress as this all is, it still might not work if we can’t find the right guy/gal that can do this….or if it can be done at all.

Plan C hurts bad. That would be, if enough wanted to, starting a new, updated and much simpler/condensed vBulletin. I think I should be able to at least import the “USER” table so it would be like a new forum but all your accounts would be there, I think. It sounds like it would work. lol I know. Proper fucked, but P4TMv2 would live.

Plan D would be to call it. After nearly 16 years it would be weird. =/

I know it’s a pain to create an account here but go ahead and chime in with a comment. Your comments will require approval before showing up but right now I am here checking often and will approve them. I want to know what y’all think on it all. If you have the means, hit fundp4tm please. I promise if don’t end up spending it on the site I will give it to charity or something. 😉 -Chef

1:07am EST: Update. It’s bad. This was the message from support:
———-
Upon initial inspection, the unit was making audible platter skipping from the hard disk. Unfortunately this disk will not make the clone. Disk to disk clones are fairly intensive on platter drives. Due to the age of the drive, it’s almost guaranteed that the clone will do more harm to the original drive than good. At this point, it’s recommended to perform a restoration from the current backup you have over to a newer system.
———————–

I am thinking BEST CASE is a restore from the last known good backup which was 4/20 oddly enough. My May backup is corrupt, I should have noticed at the time but I didn’t. But even that will have to be on all new server hardware/software and I am pretty sure there will be code compatibility errors up the wazoo, which is well beyond me. I suppose I could do the old restore, then try to contract a freelance vbulletin expert and maybe pay them a few hundred bucks to go through the code and fix that, maybe? I don’t even know if that makes sense. But I do know that usually if you throw enough money at something it can be solved. If this is the case I will be asking for help.

Either way, unless support comes back in a few hours and says they were able to clone the drive or something this is not going to be a pleasant thing, a fast thing, or maybe not a thing at all. I guess if none of that pans out I might be able to at least restore the “user” accounts to a fresh forum install if y’all still wanted a place to hang out? Shit. I don’t really know what to think/do at the moment but I will keep y’all updated here. -Chef


Initial Post:
Database went to shite or the server in general. Not sure yet.
Tried to download a current backup and it was almost half the size it should be.
I have a known good backup but it was from about six or seven weeks ago. =/
The server is very old and it’s not as easy as just moving to new hardware. The forums are old and modified enough that going to a new machine will mean new OS, huge version updates of things like Apache and PHP and I am fairly certain that would break a lot. Well beyond my abilities anyway. Hopefully the scans will run and stuff and everything will be fine like 8 months ago. More when I know more. -Chef

Chef @ 8:45pm EST: The disk/system check finished and the machine booted.

-Chef @ 7:25pm EST: Still not good. Last they said she was not coming back up and was in a system check mode or something that “could take hours”. I would not expect anything tonight. Know that if you make a comment here I can see them but this would be all spam if I let comments be public. More when I have more guys.

-Chef @ 4:25pm EST: Not a great report. When the server stopped responding I issued a reboot request and she is not coming back up. The server folks are having to pull the machine and try to see what is going on. She is a very old server and before COVID hit my plan this year was to have a Fundraiser to get a new server but it felt weird asking for money right now. Either way……at worst I have a full site backup from last month. I know losing a few weeks of posts is not a great prospect but it’s better than an year. lol More when I hear it.

-Chef @ 3:00pm EST: Not sure what is up but the server provider is investigating. More soon.

6:20pm EST.
The Repair/Optimize finally was able to run it’s course.  After it had failed multiple times, in the vB Admin, it was showing ‘vb_post’ database table size as “0” ….but when I ran the routine it was still “doing a lot of stuff” and filling up that 4gb tmp directory so I knew it wasn’t empty…but I was worried.  Long story short, once the TMP space issue was fixed the rep/opt on vb_post took a little over 2 hours.  It appears all errors were fixed and subsequent rep/opt on the entire DB including that table now are smooth and taking a couple of minutes.  I have accessed the forums and they seem to be working as expected.  I am going to run a final site backup before turning the board back on.  Should be around or before 8:00pm EST.

5:00pm EST.
Better news?  The dude fixed the setting and it SEEMS the server is now chugging along on the repair routine.  Before, I would start it and the server would be working hard doing it’s thing….then that tmp dir would fill up after about 5 mins.  Once that was full the server stopped working and loads went to zip.  Now that the dir has been expanded she has been under load for well over an hour.  Not sure if that means this is going to work or not but it’s not what I know don’t work =P .  This bitch is old anyway and it might be time for a quick little fundraiser and moving to a less expensive, much newer server anyway.  This bitch has been serving nearly 24/7 many years.  If this repair does not work I do NOT plan to restore the backup to the CURRENT SERVER.  I would end up waiting a couple of days and I would just order a new server and try restoring the backup to that instead.  Just not sure I want to put time and effort into a 10 year old machine.  That option might take time for DNS shit and stuff but I dunno.  Rest assured I don’t plan on going anywhere, I will stay in touch here and AFAIK I have a full site Cpanel backup from last night.

3:00pm EST.
I was able to get my server company to increase the DIR size (even though that work is well out of the scope of what they are required to do).  It was set at 4.5GB.  I asked for 10GB….they completed the work and must have forgot a “0” because now there is only 1GB….doh!  I will wait for them to re-fix their fix and try to run it again soon.

11:45am EST.
I think I narrowed it down to /tmp directory filling up during the process which then makes it stall.  Trying to figure out how to make that DIR larger even though I am a chef who sells medical cannabis. =/

10:00am EST.
Not going great.  I did a complete backup before hand so at worst it will just be more time.  I really might need to just get us on a newer server.  Some of the tools are just not working well with some of our older software.  More to come but I would not expect this to come back up in hours.  Hopefully I can work it out before the end of the day.

The board will be turned off around midnight.  I will keep in touch here as I go.

Server’s power distribution unit failed (outlet).  They plugged it into the next one and all is good.

i am working all day so i will not be ablr to work on this until i get home tonight.  Sorry about that