SERVER FAILURE

Firefrog · December 31, 2006, 02:00:30 PM

Although we use world class server providers we have had a catastrophic failure. All sites hosted on this particular server have been lost and unless local backups had been made the restored data is two weeks old. We are yet to hear the details of exactly what happened to the server but is was severe.

We are coming to terms with the amount of work we have lost and also the impact to you the user.

We will be putting steps in place to have a more rigorous back up plan.

That's all for now. :-(

Firefrog · December 31, 2006, 03:05:56 PM

An update - The operating system on the server somehow became corrupted and for quite some time was writing backups that where useless. So when the server finally died it became difficult to recover from properly. Our hosts have said it's quite a unique and rather freakish occurrence.

So we have to accept that it happened and keep smiling, and believe me that's hard to do. We lost so much work across many sites we can hardly comprehend it.

Lesson Learnt the hardest way possible. :-(

Firefrog · January 01, 2007, 08:18:41 AM

If you are new to the site and can't login any more - it's because of the above server failure. Any new user accounts between December the 18th and the 31st of December where lost when the server died.

We apologise for the hassle.

Firefrog · January 01, 2007, 01:18:15 PM

We are slowly getting things back to how they should be.

All though everyone tried really hard, all forum activity between 18th December and the 31st was lost.

It is likely that we will overhaul the site in the next few weeks. This will include a brand new look for SA Fire Fighter.

A major Change is Coming!!

Mike · January 02, 2007, 05:55:52 AM

The wonders of technology ;)

Sad to have lost so much, but we all appreciate the time and effort it takes to keep us 'kids' happy, and things running smoothly....

bajdas · January 02, 2007, 09:14:13 AM

I hope you received some sort of compensation via a service level agreement for this business outage.

Firefrog · January 02, 2007, 11:25:19 AM

Our host is awesome! They really do a lot to help us out. We have quite a generous deal with them and they have given us quite a bit of web space at no extra cost.

So although it stung loosing data, I don't want to pursue them for anything. It's just one of those things that happens.

And I do need to take some responsibility as I should have had a more robust local back up plan.