Crisis averted - backups working!

[daiv]

Well I didn't say anything, but some may have noticed... the database was set back to 2009 for the main site.

I used to have a php script that created the database from a spreadsheet. That got to be too cumbersome and I built a back-end so I could update the site directly through my web browser.

However, the files that ran the script included the command "drop table" and they were sitting there on the server. This happened about a year ago and I was able to restore everything then as well and deleted those PHP files so that it would never happen again.... or so I thought!

It did not occur to me that when the site was restored from an old backup, (The thing that made us lose all of our forum pictures.) those files were also included and back on the server just waiting to be executed.

When I saw that lots of records were missing from the database, I deduced what happened. The database backup process had just been stepped up and verified because of the earlier issue. The end result is that I was able to get the site back to the way it should be 100% pretty quickly.

If nobody even noticed any issues, then that is the way problems of this nature are supposed to get fixed! So while it is always a pain to have to deal with that stuff, I am pleased that everything worked the way it was supposed to this time!

[jnspire]

I did notice a "New" post that was dated Nov 2011.

It seemed something was a bit off. I am glad that it is all sorted.

[daiv]

Oh. That would be something else then. Only the table for the species listings was affected. In other words, the stuff you see when you click on the various genus names on the main site.

[jnspire]

Ahhh... my mistake sorry.

I am not sure what it was that I saw then. I don't remember which post it was on. Could it have been a user incorrectly setting their date?

[peterb]

fantastic news, Daiv, thanks for all of the work you put into making this site run. Great forum, the best on the web.

peterb