Couple of days back I had written a post on my brother's website getting hacked and the importance of regularly backing up your websites. Well, guess what? The database of this forum crashed and when I tried to restore the database, the database was 2 months old! I am using a third-party shell script to automate the backups of my database. Although I was downloading the backups to my PC, I was not verifying it. It was my negligence and I have to pay dearly for it. Almost 2 month's data lost. Another big mistake I did was not to create a backup of the database before trying to restore it. It was only later I found from the support that some errors can be fixed by attempting a repair on the database. My sincere apologies to all members for erasing 2 month's worth of posts in one shot I'm changing hosts too. From the day I changed my hosting plan, something or the other is going wrong. And the support staff aren't helpful either.
It could be worse. Don't sweat it! At some time or other we all manage to get ourselves in a predicament where our only response is: "Do as I say, not as I do." Hermas
A8ch: "Do as I say, not as I do. That's my motto! Thank you Vishal for the painful confession. Many will learn from your pain. I certainly feel your pain. Been there, done that. BACK-UP, BACK-UP, BACK-UP. hmm, maybe I should go do a back-up instead of talking about it.
Click, click, it's done. It's just too easy so we forget how important it is. Maybe back-up should be like a cup of coffee, first on my to do list. Thanks for the wake-up call. Got my back-ups downloaded now. Save them off-line folks, don't trust just one server to save you.
Thank you Hermas and Jimmy Your support and words of encouragement matters a lot to me. Didn't realize thanksgiving was coming. What a time to make this goof up!
Just read your post on another forum area and followed the link to your letter. I had the same experience with the database backup protocols, not knowing (now I do) that some issues can fix themselves with the automated repair function. Did more damage by not knowing. The end result ... learned something, got back up and running and now ... I'm gonna go do my own back up again! Like the others, I too appreciate it when something that went wrong, is simply admitted to and we all move on. Thanks Vishal.
For those who didn't get a chance to see what words Vishal had to eat... After his brother's site was damaged with no current back up to repair from... Vishal posted this helpful article about how to fix it and the importance of Keeping Current Back-Up copies of your website: http://25yearsofprogramming.com/blog/20070705.htm Unfortunately Vishal was so focused on helping his brother and us he forgot himself. 2 months worth of postings are lost in cyberspace. It could have been worse! There are still 8 years worth of helpful posts. This may be the best lesson on this forum. Experience is a great teacher.
Yeah, I was kind of wondering why my post count went from 1000+ to 900. This makes sense. I am so sorry to hear that this happened to your Vishal. Now that this happened, I am sure that a lesson was learned. Moving forward.
What a shame for you! I know how upset I would feel if the same happened to me. Thankfully the whole site wasn't wiped out! I don't know if that can happen, but how horrid it would be for all of us, but especially for you. I'm glad you were able to salvage as much as you did. Thanks for letting us know. Blessings, Angie
You too Brutus..... Is that you Vishal??? This should have been a great learning experience even for you! As happywife said, thankfully the impact was less considering only 2 month data was wiped off. Hope you are taking daily back ups after moving to the new host. After reading this incident, I wrote a thread on how to activate auto backup feature in cPanel here -> Backup your websites as simple as 1.2.3...
happywife: Thankfully the whole site wasn't wiped out! Oh my god! I shudder to think about that! samda: Hope you are taking daily back ups after moving to the new host. Yes I am Sam! This is something that I'll never forget to do henceforth!
I keep seeing theses types of posts all over the internet and I haven't backed up anything yet....I better put that on my TODO list ASAP
Wow, that explains it. I went to post a reply to something and my last few posts were gone and my account was deleted! Thank goodness the losses weren't too extensive. And, I also now know I wasn't deleted because I did anything wrong!
lizjewels: Thank goodness the losses weren't too extensive. Yes you are right. What if I didn't have backups?
Vishal P. Rao Apology accepted Vishal. It is really important to have a backup. Well now you learned your lesson. This is a great forum to be messed up.
And now it's my turn! Had a client's site get banned for spam, not able to host it on same server. So to move it to a new server we needed a current back-up, uh oh, a year old. That was a static HTML site, plus WordPress, plus an OS Commerce store. Triple no current back-up. My bad. When I'm bad, I'm really, really bad. Note: The spam was outsider abuse of the OS Commerce "Tell-A-Friend" button. Something to be aware of if you have a web store using OS Commerce.
Without making mistakes, we'd never improve. I am constantly making mistakes daily and plan to until my final breath. I am reminded of this wonderful quote: "I come from the school of thought is that there is no such thing as a mistake - it is just a great learning experience. It looks like I am in good company at that school!" Let's all keep on learning! Here's to your success! Brian
