Database Outage

We’re having a temporary blip with a database outage.  It’s being reset as I write this.

Some Can, Some Can’t

Some of you will get mixed results (over the next few hours or days) trying to access the sites that are back up.

This, unfortunately, is out of our control and has to do with how this Intarweb thingie works.

When you type a URL into a browser window, DNS is what tells it where to go ( DNS=Domain Name System).  A URL, such as “gunthing.com” is an alias for an IP number.  DNS is maintained in a few places around the world.  When changes are made to it, everyone doesn’t gets those changes at the same time (or instantly).  Depending on how you connect to the Intarweb it may take more or less time to get the changes down to your computer.

If, for example, you connect through cable modem (or a router) your router has stored a copy of DNS from the last time you initiated the connection.  Until you reset that router DNS will not update.   The best way to solve that is to turn off your router (or unplug it) for a few seconds, to force it update its DNS records.  Your computer also saves a copy of DNS for the sites you access.  Until you flush the DNS records from your system (by rebooting or flushing DNS with a command–for geeks only!), it will not update.

In addition, some ISPs keep a copy of DNS, so no matter what you do, you’re going to have the old DNS until they decide to refresh it (generally a few times a day, but sometimes not that frequently).

As I mentioned, this is stuff that is outside our control.

Silly Intarweb.

If you are still not able to get to TOS or GunThing, it is a DNS issue.  Try “Refresh” and if that doesn’t work, you’ll have to wait and try again in a few hours.

GunThing

The GunThing is up, but the DNS has not propagated yet… if you’re REALLY anxious to get there, you can use the IP address.  All the links on the site may not work, but it will allow you to do most things.

The link below will take you directly to the forum:

http://209.208.80.47/index.php/forum

All the graphics will display once the DNS is fully propagated.

The Other Side is Up

The OtherSideofKim.com is up.  You may have trouble for a while as the DNS is updated.  Try accessing the site without the www (I found that helped).  Don’t forget to press your “refresh” on your browser if you continue to have trouble.

Kim is still updating the titles on the posts that lost them (as well as the dates).

Update

I wish I had better news and we were optimistic until a few hours ago, but we have suffered a great deal of data loss, across all our sites.  We haven’t lost everything.  Below is a run down of what is gone:

• TheOtherSideofKim:  All comments since 3/31/2008 and all forum posts since 3/31/2008 (including our fabulous “What is Art” Conversation–Weet, if you have emails with the comments people posted, let’s try to recreate the history there).  The titles of posts from 3/31/2008 are also lost, but Kim knows the last 50 and will create the other 150.  The posts are there, but the titles and post dates are gone.   Kim will recreate.  Member data (new members and changes) after 3/31/2008 is also lost.
• Geopoliticus:  All comments are gone.  All titles (same as above) will need to be recreated, as well as the dates the posts were entered.  Member data after 3/31/2008 is also lost.
• The Gun Thing:  The forums (topics and posts) are all there.  Members who joined after 12/8/2007 are gone; however, and we’ll need to fill in the gaps for anyone who changed their member data after that date (or joined after that date).  The Wiki is intact.  All weblog entries made after 12/7/2007 are gone.

Those are the only sites we’ve evaluated so far and we’re attempting to get them in reasonable shape as quickly as possible.  Information about other sites will be posted as soon we know more.

Because the corruptions are so severe it is going to take a bit longer before the above sites are back online.  We want to make sure everything is working before we turn the sites back on.  

We apologize for the inconvenience and we are so sorry that data was lost. 

Please check back here for further updates.

Back up Still in Progress

The back ups were last captured at about 4:00 am (which means any loss of data should be minor).  The restore from back ups is still taking place.

Sites Down

All sites are currently down.  We’ll post an update when the sites are online.

Email is working.

The server hard disk crashed so the sites are being restored from the last backup.

Sites are Working

All sites are working.

Email is Working

Email is working.

Sites Down

Sorry for the inconvenience, but all our sites are currently down.  Our host is trying (madly) to figure out why.

Email is also down.  We’ll post updates when they are available.