IIDB is Down

[viscousmemories]

I swung by IIDB (http://www.iidb.org) in response to an email notification last night, but the post I went to look at wasn't there. In fact, there were no posts at all in the thread I went to look at.

I noticed the same for a few other threads, and then I noticed that still older threads led to a database error. In fact the only threads that were viewable were the announcements and any new threads that were created, including a couple in the P&C forum that indicated that others were having similar issues.

This morning the site is down for "emergency maintenance" with no ETA for its return. So I figured I might as well start a thread for the discussion of when it will be back up for any lost and frightened wanderers who might find their way here with questions or news on the subject.

[Leesifer]

I noticed that this morning. When I went to read any thread, I just got the thread title with no posts whatsoever.

[livius drusus]

I've seen the threads having no content problem before but it was fixed within a few minutes. Databases are a very mysterious thing to me.

[D. Scarlatti]

Oh great. Now I'm going to have to abuse Christians in real life today.

[fragment]

Yeah, I checked it this morning at 9 (UK time) and discovered the weird no posts thing. There didn't seem to be many posts for a few hours before that, and several new threads seemed to have been submitted multiple times. Weird. They've been working on upgrades and tweaks recently I believe.

[viscousmemories]

I've seen the threads having no content problem before but it was fixed within a few minutes. Databases are a very mysterious thing to me.
The thread and post information are kept in two separate tables in the database. So when you look at a forum index (The Watering Hole, for example) you're looking at a list of thread titles pulled from the thread table. When you click on a given thread title, a new page is generated and populated with the relevant data from the posts table.

So the symptoms described here indicate a disconnect between the thread and posts tables - not necessarily an indication that any thread or post data is missing or damaged. Hence sometimes simple db maintenance that involves restoring the broken connections is sufficient to fix the issue.

[livius drusus]

Ah, gotcha. That makes sense. Thank you for humoring the :dopey:.

[Julian]

Here is the official explanation that I got from an email sent to all mods:

Sometime over the night, the 'post' table of the database seems to have corrupted, thus explaining the blank pages everyone seems to be receiving. I am currently in the process of attempting to repair said table but this table is atypical in that it's size is well over 3 gigabytes on a good day. What it comes down too is that the forums might be down all day until this gets fixed. It doesn't help that I'm at work and not at home either.

It is a priority of mine to get this fixed, so just hang in there and hopefully we'll be IIDBing soon.


Julian

[Julian]

It's back up! :)

[fragment]

Ouch, repairing a 3+ gig table!

ETA - I guess it wasn't so ouch after all.

[viscousmemories]

I think it's still a work in progress, all the forums appear to be locked.

Or maybe I'm tripping. Either is possible.

[viscousmemories]

Oops, I see. I wasn't logged in. :doh:

[MonCapitan2002]

Ah, gotcha. That makes sense. Thank you for humoring the :dopey:.
There is no need to call yourself :dopey:. So you didn't know what vm knows. Just because you are ignorant about a certain issue (namely databases and how they work) does not make you :dopey:.

[Joshua Adams]

There is no need to call yourself :dopey:. So you didn't know what vm knows. Just because you are ignorant about a certain issue (namely databases and how they work) does not make you :dopey:.I think you should respect livius's right to her own opinion on this matter.







:giggle:

[Plant Woman]

I went through everyone, does this make me :dopey:? Or just blonde?

[Shake]

Well, glad to see it's back up. I figured it'd be all day. Of course, my knowledge about these sorts of databases is pretty limited, too. Thanks to vm for that explanation.

[pescifish]

It started Sunday night sometime between 8:40p and 9:30p Pacific. It might have been something that could have been fixed quickly, but I'm not sure Matt even knew about it until this morning.

What was interesting about whatever odd thing was going on with the database was that if I selected "Show printable version" under Thread Tools (after loading up the 'empty' thread), all the posts displayed.