Guest Posted July 3, 2012 Posted July 3, 2012 I certainly hope they get everything back and restored as Yeti1974 is right, if their data is lost it would be a blow to the BF Community. I remember when The BFF 1.0 endured a cyber-attack when an Admin mistakenly left his work computer on and logged in to the forum over a weekend. Still not sure if that was a personal attack on him or one against the forum, but the forum got wrapped up in it. I'm sure the BFRO has really capable people working on figuring their issue out and restoring their files. I wish them the best in that endeavor. Makes me thankful for our daily back-up system that gigantor put in place. I wish more folks/members knew the stalwart work he does on the forum's behalf. We are VERY fortunate to have someone so capable in his position.
BobbyO Posted July 3, 2012 SSR Team Posted July 3, 2012 Let's hope those Reports are not lost.. I can't believe their Forum is ok, and the Reports are in jeapordy. Ohhhh the irony of that..
gigantor Posted July 3, 2012 Admin Posted July 3, 2012 This why we need our own sightings database....
Guest BFSleuth Posted July 3, 2012 Posted July 3, 2012 They are now two days into this outage. Bar far the longest problem I've seen. From what I can tell the only think affected is their sighting reports, all other parts of their site is working. This also leads me to think that with our own database the only record we have of the actual written report is links back to original reports. If something like the BFRO data is lost, then we don't have the written account anymore, just the data fields we've filled out. Is it allowed to copy and paste sighting reports into a larger field? Can we create a field in our database big enough to handle that? (Gigantor question...)...
Guest Posted July 3, 2012 Posted July 3, 2012 Let's hope those Reports are not lost.. I can't believe their Forum is ok, and the Reports are in jeapordy. Ohhhh the irony of that.. The forum is on a different server.
Guest BFSleuth Posted July 3, 2012 Posted July 3, 2012 So far the problem seems to be isolated to the sighting report database.
Guest MikeG Posted July 3, 2012 Posted July 3, 2012 Ultimately, with the greatest respect to the BFRO, that's the only thing that really counts unfortunately.
bipedalist Posted July 3, 2012 BFF Patron Posted July 3, 2012 (edited) Actually I think there is more available at BFRO.net than just a sightings database and forum. They actually have some decent historical accounts of major encounters and some research speculations on game cams and other things. If people would follow a site map, they might be surprised what all is contained there (if everything on the old site map is still there or ever shows back up that is). Edited July 3, 2012 by bipedalist
gigantor Posted July 3, 2012 Admin Posted July 3, 2012 (edited) Is it allowed to copy and paste sighting reports into a larger field? Can we create a field in our database big enough to handle that? We could, but those reports are copyrighted, that's why I only put a link back to them. It would be a total bummer if they don't have a good backup. Honestly, it's not looking good. It's a trivial matter to restore the data from backup... unless you don't have one or it's corrupted. I think they use Microsoft SQL Server and there's a specific procedure you must follow in order to do a proper backup, you can't just copy the files. I'm sure somebody has an old copy somewhere. They could also send the failed hard drive to a data recovery lab for about $5k, and then pay a db expert to salvage whatever they get back. Haven't they heard of RAID? Meanwhile at BFRO headquarters... Edited July 3, 2012 by gigantor
Guest OntarioSquatch Posted July 3, 2012 Posted July 3, 2012 (edited) They put a lot of effort in interviewing eye witnesses. It would be a shame to just lose them. Edited July 3, 2012 by OntarioSquatch
bipedalist Posted July 3, 2012 BFF Patron Posted July 3, 2012 (edited) Hope the Wayback machine has some deep pockets or Wally Hersom has his own personal copy of the database (which with his level of support in the past for BFRO would not be out of the equation). As a matter of fact I heard Wally has a team on site. Disaster averted j/k Edited July 3, 2012 by bipedalist
Guest Thepattywagon Posted July 3, 2012 Posted July 3, 2012 The fact that there is no explanation or update on their homepage concerning the disappearing reports makes me think that maybe there is not any good news. Hope that's not the case, and if so all I can say is wow.
EABiker Posted July 3, 2012 Posted July 3, 2012 Perhaps the government heard about their sightings database and decided to clearcut their server.
Guest BFSleuth Posted July 3, 2012 Posted July 3, 2012 The fact that there is no explanation or update on their homepage concerning the disappearing reports makes me think that maybe there is not any good news. Hope that's not the case, and if so all I can say is wow. Matt posted comments in their forum about the situation starting Sunday. Last post was yesterday at 9:07 pm, "This is taking longer than expected. We'll let you know if there are any updates." The thread concerning the topic is closed, so no other comments are allowed. I'm sure there would be more .... uh... free flowing discussion if they allowed the members to chime in... Unfortunate how interesting topics over there are closed so frequently.
VAfooter Posted July 3, 2012 Admin Posted July 3, 2012 Hope the Wayback machine has some deep pockets.... Unfortunately, the WM only archives that stuff that makes it to net. So they could regain what was public, but everything else is up in smoke if they do not have backups (unimaginable) or cannot use the backups. Bad day in Bigfootville if they cannot. Although I have heard that if one has enough money, most anything can restored, simply a matter of time and effort. However, I doubt they have the funds required to restore it in that case unless a generous benefactor steps in.
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