Freebird Posted February 5, 2016 #1 Posted February 5, 2016 OK folks, here's the thing. We lost a LOT of photo attachments in the forums. I am more than a little upset over it. When I did the major upgrade to the site, it caused this issue. What bothers me is that VBulletin knew that there was an issue and was a procedure that would have prevented it but they did not make it known at the time. The problem was not with the new software but actually with the old. It's pretty technical but the short version is that a flag was improperly set in the database of the old version that we ran for years. When the software was updated, the new version corrected the bug that caused the flat to be set improperly but in correcting that bug, it saw old those old attachments to be seen as "orphan" attachments not attached to any post and deleted them from the database. So, the actual images are stored in directories on the server but the links to them were removed from the posts and the database. The only way for me to restore them at this point is to manually edit every thread that is missing images. I know that there is some good technical information that is not missing images that are important to understanding the subject being discussed. Therefore, I am committed to correcting this problem and can assure you that I will. I have already started as of this morning but I can tell you, it's going to take me several weeks and possibly even months to get it all done. The procedure is that I have to check every thread that had pictures attached. I then have to look at the date of that post and then search the image directory for the relevant pictures. I then have to download those pictures. The software changes the file type to .attach instead of .jpg or whatever it was originally. I have to download those photos, change the extension back to .jpg and then edit the post and reattach the pictures. I will have to do this for thousands of pictures because there is no way to do it in any type of bulk process. Like I said, this is going to take some time but when I'm sitting in hotel rooms in the evenings, I will be working on it. Please be patient. In the meantime, if you are are trying to get immediate information about a particular procedure and find the pictures missing, please send me a PM and I'll get on that one ASAP. Please be patient. This is going to take me MANY MANY hours but I will get it done.
Flyinfool Posted February 5, 2016 #2 Posted February 5, 2016 Oh man, that is a bummer. If there is any way that any of us can help you along please let us know. Until I can walk again I am spending a lot of time sitting around looking for something that can be done from my easy chair. Would it be a help or a hindrance if we went back into posts that we made and re downloaded the pics (IF we still have them where we can find them)?
Freebird Posted February 5, 2016 Author #3 Posted February 5, 2016 Yes, if any of you can edit your own posts and upload the photos that would be fantastic. Every little bit helps.
Bert2006 Posted February 5, 2016 #4 Posted February 5, 2016 Yes, if any of you can edit your own posts and upload the photos that would be fantastic. Every little bit helps. Thanks for looking into it. Will gladly do so and try to fix my posts! Are the pictures that have been lost available on the site somewhere or do we need to re-load from our originals that we have on our computer?
Freebird Posted February 5, 2016 Author #5 Posted February 5, 2016 Most should be on the site if they were uploaded to the site. If you have the originals, that would be the easiest for me. If I have to find and download them then I may as well just do it myself. Any help is certainly appreciated.
XV1100SE Posted February 5, 2016 #6 Posted February 5, 2016 Just wondering....could you roll back the data/system to prior to the upgrade, redo the upgrade after setting the flag, and then apply new posts/threads since the upgrade from back up?
Freebird Posted February 5, 2016 Author #7 Posted February 5, 2016 No, because though a backup was done, they tell me that it won't include the information that is missing from the database. Not only that, but we would lose everything from the time that it was done.
cecdoo Posted February 5, 2016 #8 Posted February 5, 2016 Thanks again for all you do Don, wondering if it wouldnt be easier to just add new photos to tech articles as they are requested/needed. When someone has a question or needs a pic. I am sure someone can help them and upload a new pic. Hate to see you have to spend hrs and hrs to redo all the pics. I recently had a question and couldnt find pics, I contacted Ragtop and he was kind enough to send me pics and all the help I needed. Craig
MiCarl Posted February 5, 2016 #10 Posted February 5, 2016 OUCH! That's painful. One thought Don - I believe the folks at Knownhost have backups going back farther than you can see in WHM. I wonder if it'd be possible to restore an image from before the upgrade, upgrade (properly) the restored image THEN overlay the newer DB records. If possible it'd be a lot of work. On the other hand you may be contemplating even more with your manual path.
cowpuc Posted February 5, 2016 #11 Posted February 5, 2016 Indeed Don, THANK YOU for all you do!! Speaking of all you do brother, maybe this is one of those times where some kind of mass email or PM message could be sent out asking for folks to reinstall pics if they could. Sounds like a LOT of work for one person. Kind of give us a chance to help carry the load, the old many hands make light work routine.
etcswjoe Posted February 5, 2016 #12 Posted February 5, 2016 Don to echo what has already been said THANKS!! for all you do. This is not a total loss folks don't have to look at pictures of my ugly mug in old post now.
Freebird Posted February 5, 2016 Author #13 Posted February 5, 2016 OUCH! That's painful. One thought Don - I believe the folks at Knownhost have backups going back farther than you can see in WHM. I wonder if it'd be possible to restore an image from before the upgrade, upgrade (properly) the restored image THEN overlay the newer DB records. If possible it'd be a lot of work. On the other hand you may be contemplating even more with your manual path. Unfortunately that won't work. The images are not missing, they are in the file folders. They are just no longer associated with the posts. All the posts and image links are stored in the database. According to the experts, there is no way to just selective restore the database. It's all or nothing. Knownhost only keeps backups for two weeks. That's not the problem though. I have a backup that I did just hours before the upgrade. The problem is that there is just no way to selectively restore it.
Bert2006 Posted February 5, 2016 #14 Posted February 5, 2016 Don, can you tell us what would be the date when this occurred. That way we can focus on post that we would have made prior to that date and repost our photos for those.
Freebird Posted February 5, 2016 Author #15 Posted February 5, 2016 Well the date was October 29th, 2014. Not all photos were lost though. Some threads still have them intact.
MiCarl Posted February 6, 2016 #16 Posted February 6, 2016 (edited) Sorry, I used confusing language. By image I was referring to the server image, not the picture files. Here is what I had in mind, and I'm not sure it's doable. Someone that understood the database better than I would have to look into it: 1) Restore the October 29th files and database somewhere. This should give you an operating forum as of Oct. 29. 2) Upgrade that "old" copy using the method that preserves links to the images. 3) Extract the records created after Oct. 29 from the "current" database and import them into the upgraded "old" database. -> This is the tricky part that would need some DB expertise to approach. I can think of one other trick that would require some coding: An application to go through the old DB, identify picture links and insert them into the posts in the current DB. If the upgrade reshuffled indexes though this would be much harder or impossible. If your issue is you have multiple DBs in that Oct. 29 backup and the restore will roll them all back there is a work around for that too. Export each current DB separately via PhpMyAdmin, do your restore, then use PhpMyAdmin to import the current data back into the DBs you don't want rolled back. This is a trick I've had to use a couple times when I've trashed a DB and had to recover from an account level backup. Edited February 6, 2016 by MiCarl
Freebird Posted February 6, 2016 Author #17 Posted February 6, 2016 That may be possible but everybody I've asked has said that it's not. They all tell me that you can't selectively input the missing data. They say that If I did backed it up today and then restored the old one that I would not be able to then selective input everything from that date until now. If I could do that, then it would be the same as simply importing the old date into the current one. I'm told that neither will work. I've talked to people a lot smarter than me and if they can't do it, I know that I can't. Maybe some folks out there can, it wouldn't surprise me, but I can't.
MiCarl Posted February 6, 2016 #18 Posted February 6, 2016 I'm sure there isn't a "defined" way to do it, but I'd be willing to bet someone with the right skill set could pull it off. Sounds like you're already going to make a big time commitment but if you don't have the skills you're shut down. I wish I had more free time. I'd love to spend a couple weeks with your backups.........
videoarizona Posted February 6, 2016 #19 Posted February 6, 2016 I think the best thing we can all do is check our own posts, then if we have any photo issues...send the photos and info to Don and then he can fix them on his schedule. And yes...thank you Sir Don for all you have done for us! I'm going to look up my posts and see if I have any issues...
Trader Posted February 7, 2016 #20 Posted February 7, 2016 The biggest loss would be the tech threads...the how to's. would it be worth losing recent posts to restore all of that?
Eck Posted February 7, 2016 #21 Posted February 7, 2016 I think the best thing we can all do is check our own posts, then if we have any photo issues...send the photos and info to Don and then he can fix them on his schedule. And yes...thank you Sir Don for all you have done for us! I'm going to look up my posts and see if I have any issues... Folks, with Freebirds concurrence, if you find you have pictures missing in "YOUR" posts, you can send a replacement picture to my home email address and I will gladly put them back in the post where you tell me it is missing. Note: I just now placed my home email address on my profile page - Look in the "INTEREST's SECTION"
Bert2006 Posted February 7, 2016 #22 Posted February 7, 2016 Folks, with Freebirds concurrence, if you find you have pictures missing in "YOUR" posts, you can send a replacement picture to my home email address and I will gladly put them back in the post where you tell me it is missing. Note: I just now placed my home email address on my profile page - Look in the "INTEREST's SECTION" Wouldnt it be easier and simpler if we each did our own? I will start looking at mine tonight.
Freebird Posted February 7, 2016 Author #23 Posted February 7, 2016 That would certainly be easier. If you don't know how to do that though, feel free to send them to Eck or Myself.
Flyinfool Posted February 7, 2016 #24 Posted February 7, 2016 I have done a couple of mine now with just uploading the pics over again. The parts still missing is where someone else also put pics in a thread I started, or I put pics in a thread someone else started.
XV1100SE Posted February 7, 2016 #25 Posted February 7, 2016 Not sure if I missed it above....but along the line of restoring to a "new" location and copying threads over..... If you restored the backup to a "ghost" forum and flag everything so the upgrade keeps the links, then do the upgrade. Could you then delete the "read only" technical sections from the "live" forum and copy the "read only" to the live forum ? Not sure what that would do with indexes. I think the only sections that most important are the read only libraries. I'm still looking for the pictures I included in my "how to's". I may not have them any more but could try to redo them.
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