Stories down--Update: Repaired

[Betty]

Our Story Site is temporarily down. It appears the server I lease that it's on, decided to move to new servers, with new servernames & IP addresses. When they reassigned the Stories domain, BuffaloBetties.net to the new servernames & IP, the domain has to propagate on the web, like as if it was a new domain again. This can take up to 24-48 hours to propagate all around the world.

I see it's already propagated in some parts of Eastern Australia, Western India, Pakistan, & Italy. So they can see the Story site but the rest of us can't yet.

Why do web server companies ALWAYS want to take somewhere around Thanksgiving to Christmas to make some big move, or changes, that cause all sorts of headaches, muck stuff up, or break something at a time when we're least likely able to have the time & energy to deal with it?

It must have something to do with them wanting changes for the new year, but it's very bad timing from their customers & users point of view to screw around with everything during the busy holidays.

Anyway, if it isn't back up soon, I'll consider putting a mirror copy of the Stories Site up from our backups onto our other servers for us to use.

[Betty]

Our server company lost the past month's worth of Stories posts when moving us to their new servers. They're currently working to get them back. My backup copy is a week old, so a week's worth of posts will be lost if I use my backups. Please do not try to register to join, or post anything at this temporary mirror of the site of my week-old backup. They will be lost when the original site goes back online & this mirror site gets shut off.

Stories backup site:
pearlcorona.org/stories-disabled

Update Dec.29 4:43pm E. USA time: The story board is back up & running from my week-old backup copy. That's the best I can do. Sorry for the inconvenience. The week-old mirror copy above has been disabled & removed.

[Betty]

It looks like my week-old backups are the newest copies of stories around. They made no effort to sync my account data to their new servers since Nov. 30th. They should have been syncing & updating the data on the new system at least daily until the move was complete.

Comminication with the HW server company:

Me:
"On the 27th around 3:30 AM (eastern USA time), I renamed my nameservers, as you requested on my buffalobetties.net account, because you said you were moving it from a legacy server to a new one. By 7:30 AM I canceled the account on the old legacy (V1) nameservers there as you requested. By 10 AM my site was down, & even my cpanel cannot be found anymore.

You told me the DNS needs to propagate, & it will take some time. You sent me to https://www.whatsmydns.net/#NS/buffalobetties.net to monitor the propagation. There's no change in the propagation there since I started monitoring about 30 hours ago. Regardless of the domain propagation, shouldn't I be able to get to the site or cpanel directly to the server or an IP link? It's not domain-dependent. There is no cpanel anymore even when I go directly there through the cpanel link you sent me, & in our client area.

I have 3 accounts with you, & didn't have this problem when I changed nameservers on my pearlcorona.org account weeks ago. Everything was running fine there about a couple hours after changing the nameservers."

---------

From HW on their help chat:
"After checking the acccount we see you didn't assign your domain to the correct nameservers. We'll change it for you, & the domain will start propagating"

Me:
"I'm at the client & domain area on your website right now. It's showing that they are at the correct nameservers that you sent me to change them to. I can't get into cpanel either, from the link you sent me. That is not domain dependent, shouldn't I be able to access that regardless?"

HW:
"Your browser may be displaying old or incorrect information from your browser's cache. Clear the cache, & cookies. Then reload the page."

Me:
"The view is the same on 4 different browsers, 3 different computers, & 2 different OS's. They can't all be displaying some sort of wrong cached page. Anyway, it's propagating now & fixed?"

HW:
"Yes it's propagating now."

Me:
"Thanks so much, & have a happy new year."

"HW:
Your welcome."

----------

Help ticket messages.
Me:
"The site is back running. But all the data, posts, messages, images, & registrations are a month or more old. You lost all of this month's data."

HW:
"It looks like you were migrated from our legacy services onto a new service, and continued running your sites and updating your databases on the old service post-migration. You would like all of the new data migrated onto the new service as well?"

Me:
"Of course I would. I can't use a month old outdated forum, & social site. It appears you moved my site to the new system a month ago, while it was still running on the old system. Then a week ago you told my to rename my domain's nameservers, & delete the old (V1) nameservers by the 27th. Knowing that mucking around screws up sites, & data, I immediately downloaded backups of the site to save at home. On the 27th I downloaded another backup again before I renamed the nameservers. But later I discovered that most recent backup only has data from Nov. 30th & older too. All the new stuff was missing."

HW:
"On checking the service Basic Business - buffalobetties.net is working fine and cpanel account is loading fine from our end.
As we have informed earlier the Legacy services have been shut down after the migration of your account."

Me:
"You folks got my site at buffalobetties.net & cpanel back online for me earlier today. But everything there now is a month old. I run an SMF forum there. All posts, messages, images, & registrations the are from November 30th or older. All newer stuff & data from our busy holiday season is missing. We need you to take our site, data, & database as it was on your "legacy" (V1) system, as it was on December 27th, & put it on the site on the new system. You put a copy of my site & database from a month ago on the new system."

HW:
"We will resync the old server with the new server.
For continuing with the further procedure we will be escalating this ticket to our higher technicians.
They will update you shortly."

Me:
"Thank you. If that fails, if I can get a link back to the buffalobetties legacy cpanel, files, & legacy myphp database, I can just download the necessary recent files, & database, then install them onto my site. I've moved & made mirror sites of PHPBB & SMF forums many times before. I even save backups of my sites at home too. But due to age related illnesses, COPD, & the holidays, my backups for the sites are also old."

HW:
"We are really sorry to inform you that the legacy account (V1) Ultimate Business - buffalobetties.net is already terminated and backup cannot be restored.
We have already informed about the migration in the ticket: #090920xxxxx-xxxxx Notice: Discontinuation of Service, Action Required on Thursday 5th December at 03:18"

(That's BS anyway, because the data for stories on the new service is from Nov. 30th & older, not Dec. 5)

Me:
"Yes. But I was told I had until the 27th to rename the nameservers, & cancel the legacy account. It was a busy holiday season, I'm elderly, in the final stages of severe COPD, & was very ill this month. I was led to believe I had until the 27th, so started at it, at around 3am (eastern time) on the 27th renaming the nameservers, & cancelling the V1 legacy account. I even double checked to procedure with you in Chat because I suspected something exactly like this or worse would happen... it smelled like a disaster waiting to happen. I've been building websites & forums since 1994, & been on the Usenet since the early 1980s. I have 3 accounts with you, & 3 server accounts with 2 other server companies.

There was never any mention that the data on the old legacy & new service would not be in sync or updated for a month... A typical & normal process of the server company.

There was no notification that I had to immediately rename nameservers, & cancel the legacy account immediately on the 30th or all new data would be lost. Indeed, the notifications were vague at first. Because I have 3 accounts with you, I had absolutely no idea which account it was referring to back then. Legacy & new should have been in sync or synced at least once a day until everything was done. That's how it normally works.

Indeed, this is the first time ever since site building since 1994, that I had to go in & rename nameservers, & cancel legacy accounts because the host server decided to move to a new system. If the server company are changing to a new system, it's usually their job to deal with moving it all & the details, not the customers."

[Betty]

The story board is back up & running from my week-old backup copy. All posts, & registrations during the past week were lost. That's the best I can do. At least I had the good sense to make backup copies last week. Sorry for the inconvenience. The week-old mirror copy of stories here at Betty's Pub has been removed.

[samantha1]

Hi Betty,it appears that the server people do not know what they are doing

[Betty]

They're great fast machines, with a fast connection, at a decent price. Free 24 hour chat help/trouble tickets. And they don't care whether we're a bunch of sissies or anything.

They seemed to know what I was talking about. They just left too much in the customer's hands to deal with during their move. They were very vague about it too... leaving even the most knowledgeable people to assume the company would be handling the move, & all we had to do is follow their (complex) instructions to make it all work fine without a problem.

People say when you lease a server, you're on your own on what to do with it, & it's not like a web hosting service. But that's my point. If I'm leasing a server, & that company decides to move almost everything to new servers, it's up to them to do it, make the backups, & make sure everything is moved intact, not the customer.

The customers shouldn't have to be involved with their move, & made to jump hoops, then have them loose data at the end of it all because their employees were lazy & careless.

On December 5th they said they were moving it to a new server, & I had until the 27th to rename the new nameservers to my BuffaloBetties domain, & cancel the account on their old servers. Nothing was said about that the site was already installed on the new servers on Nov. 30th & will not be updated again while we were still on the old servers.

They did it the lazy way. They didn't sync or update the new servers from the old servers at least once a day while the customers were still on their old servers.

It appears what they did was get a bunch of new servers in November, copy everything off the old servers onto the new servers all at once, then sent all the customers a letter saying they have until the 27th to change their nameservers to the new servers, & cancel their old server accounts, before they shut down the old servers. They were lazy, didn't do what they were supposed to do when moving to a new server.

It would have been easier for me just to make a backup of the site, close the account, & just upload it to another server. I have 5 of them (6 if you include my google server).

They just loaded everything up onto new servers any old way a month ago, not update them, & left it up to their customers to deal with & complete the move, without notifying them any details... like the new server's data will be a month old.

[Betty]

They lost a month's worth of Stories & data on us. Fortunately I had a week old backup of the Stories database stored at home, so we only lost a weeks worth of Stories & registrations, rather than a month's worth of stories that they lost.

But I didn't have a recent backup of images & other files from the story site, so some pictures & other files were lost there. Because the structure & cores of both our sites are similar, I copied a lot of the files from here to patch stories with, & get it fully functional again. So all is fixed now, except for the missing pictures, & a weeks worth of stories.

5 days of hell working around the clock to fix things as good as it could get them there. I'm sure there's a few bugs I missed too, that nobody & I haven't noticed yet.

The same company moved Betty's Pub here to their new system, a few weeks ago too. They didn't loose a month's worth of the database here like they did at stories though, but it took me over a week to notice that they did loose about 20% of our pictures here, mostly in our older galleries.