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digitalmars.D - Forum up again!

reply Dom DiSc <dominikus scherkl.de> writes:
Hurray, after four days the D forum is back.

Anyone any idea why it was down so long?
Aug 07 2023
next sibling parent reply Dom DiSc <dominikus scherkl.de> writes:
On Monday, 7 August 2023 at 17:28:53 UTC, Dom DiSc wrote:

 Hurray, after four days the D forum is back.

 Anyone any idea why it was down so long?


Ok, it wasn't down, but no one could post anything.
Aug 07 2023
parent Dukc <ajieskola gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 7 August 2023 at 17:34:04 UTC, Dom DiSc wrote:

 On Monday, 7 August 2023 at 17:28:53 UTC, Dom DiSc wrote:

 Hurray, after four days the D forum is back.

 Anyone any idea why it was down so long?


 Ok, it wasn't down, but no one could post anything.


Oh, so THAT was why they were so silent. I was unaware of the 
problem as I hadn't tried posting myself.
Aug 07 2023
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 8/7/2023 10:28 AM, Dom DiSc wrote:

 Anyone any idea why it was down so long?


An attempt to upgrade the NNTP software to 2.7 from 2.6 caused the problem. 
Yesterday I suggested to Jan to give up on 2.7 and go back to 2.6, restoring
the 
system from a snapshot.

While this worked, it also meant we lost postings from the time of the backup
to 
when the forum went down.

------------

A related problem surfaced. I use Thunderbird mail as my news reader. It turns 
out that every attempt to refresh the news articles in Thunderbird caused 
Thunderbird to corrupt its database of articles. I had to restore that from 
backup, too.

I've had problems before with TB corrupting its files. It does not have a
robust 
database that can fix itself from errors, so a simple error in the database 
causes the entire database to become irretrievable. TB also has fragility
issues 
in that when an error happens (like cannot connect to the nntp server) it borks 
up its database.
Aug 07 2023
next sibling parent Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy gmail.com> writes:
On 8/7/23 4:18 PM, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 8/7/2023 10:28 AM, Dom DiSc wrote:

 Anyone any idea why it was down so long?


 
 An attempt to upgrade the NNTP software to 2.7 from 2.6 caused the 
 problem. Yesterday I suggested to Jan to give up on 2.7 and go back to 
 2.6, restoring the system from a snapshot.
 
 While this worked, it also meant we lost postings from the time of the 
 backup to when the forum went down.
 
 ------------
 
 A related problem surfaced. I use Thunderbird mail as my news reader. It 
 turns out that every attempt to refresh the news articles in Thunderbird 
 caused Thunderbird to corrupt its database of articles. I had to restore 
 that from backup, too.
 
 I've had problems before with TB corrupting its files. It does not have 
 a robust database that can fix itself from errors, so a simple error in 
 the database causes the entire database to become irretrievable. TB also 
 has fragility issues in that when an error happens (like cannot connect 
 to the nntp server) it borks up its database.



Yeah, I've had to unsubscribe and resubscribe, and now I'm downloading 
all the history again.

Such a pain.

I kind of feel like the reason it is "corrupt" is because the "latest 
article" id is in the future, so it's not downloading any new messages 
since they appear to be in the past.

In any case, glad to have this important resource up and running again!

-Steve
Aug 07 2023
prev sibling parent kdevel <kdevel vogtner.de> writes:
On Monday, 7 August 2023 at 20:18:38 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 8/7/2023 10:28 AM, Dom DiSc wrote:

 Anyone any idea why it was down so long?


 An attempt to upgrade the NNTP software to 2.7 from 2.6 caused 
 the problem.


Cloning the installation and testing the upgrade was not 
possible? (rhetorical question).


 Yesterday I suggested to Jan to give up on 2.7 and go back to 
 2.6, restoring the system from a snapshot.

 While this worked, it also meant we lost postings from the time 
 of the backup to when the forum went down.


There are some postings in the forum missing. I thought the forum 
has its own message store. After login the forum presented me 
unsent drafts one of which I could not send because of "No 
groups" (dotted red box)...
Aug 09 2023
prev sibling parent Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy gmail.com> writes:
On 8/7/23 1:28 PM, Dom DiSc wrote:

 Hurray, after four days the D forum is back.
 
 Anyone any idea why it was down so long?


The newsgroup server failed, and they couldn't recover it for several days.

The D forums are backed by a usenet NNTP server, which means you can 
either post via a newsreader, or via the web interface. The reason the 
forums were still "up" is because the web forum also stores all the 
historical posts, so you can read what had already been sent, but not 
send new messages.

-Steve
Aug 07 2023