DSLReports site outage - 15 April 2012

Back soon, I hope - based on the latest, it should be a few days.

 

I am surprised this happen but hopefully he can get it back.

Otherwise that would suck.

 

Well today is the 25th, any word if DSLReports is coming back online?

 

See here:

http://www.dslreports.com/

link to a break-down of the situation and what is going on at the link above...

 

I think its going to be a longtime before its back up
in full swing

 

Let's hope it comes back real soon. I really miss it.

 

Dustin is in wait mode, we shall see. I suspect it depends on the outcome of what the involved third parties are doing and when they come through, if they come through.

 

Yes, and not only is Dustin in wait mode, but Justin and many others are as well. lol (Sorry, I couldn't resist).

That's the thing though. When you send your equipment out to one of those ultra expensive companies to recover data that you youself and the rest of the gang were unable to recover, it's got to be agonizing waiting for the outcome.
He will apparently even be sending the disks to yet another company as a 'backup option'. (If he hasn't already done so).
This 'wait' would be driving me nuts with what little data I have around my home network, let alone an important section of the massive amount of data on that entire site.
I sure wish him the best of luck, because he may need it in the long run.

 

The one thing Justin won't be short of is goodwill and best wishes. Let's hope that is enough!

 

Yeah, never heard of him.

 

Update 27th April:
Whenever we’ve had the possibility of a good or bad outcome, we get dealt the bad outcome. Inspection of all disks has so far not supported any better theory than the SAN (storage array) over-wrote enough data to make full restoration a fragmented process, at best. I would like to dump technical detail as it seems a ludicrous scenario, but cannot until the analysis is complete. I’m not going to be convinced until we get more than just one professional opinion.

In the event things drag on for longer I could unlock the site for “normal” use, leaving space for whatever data recovery turns up, however this in itself is tricky. Meanwhile I will free up more older but still useful pages. This is no help to members who wish to use restricted forums or get to their instant messages, or post in forums, but it at least heads off some of the search engine damage created by unavailable URLs.

I hope we’ll catch a break in the next few days and can post something more optimistic!

Not looking so good. But on the bright side there is now more data.

 

Wow...this is exactly what I was afraid of, when I heard he had to send the disks out to a professional data recovery company (or two). They charge major dollars, and are generally very good at what they do. But if they're having problems, this really looks even worse than I thought. (And I thought it looked pretty bad to begin with).

 

I got this just now with password and username
spots

 

Yep, saw it too.

Actually thought the site was good to go.

 

This just went from bad to the absolute worst thing that could happen to an online community. Losing all of the data.

I guess we're all going to have to find a new place to hang out online, get help, give help, read reviews, write reviews, etc.

At this point... I wouldn't blame Justin one damn bit if he decided to just permanently shut the site down, sell the domain off, and ultimately kill off the site. I know that if I were in his position, I'd have done that the first day I realized that I lost this much data. I'd have just thrown the towel in. This is probably the most embarrassing thing that can happen to a web site such as DSLReports, total and complete data loss.

Not only that... but I'd file a lawsuit like none the f*** other against NAC for lost business. Then, sit pretty for the rest of my life knowing that I have enough money to live life comfortably for years to come.

 

I agree it appears to be a pretty bad scene. However, he didn't lose all of the data, and it remains to be seen just what can be recovered.
I don't see Justin throwing the towel in yet though.
But I do see the potential for it taking a VERY long time to recover to the original state, if it's even possible to do that.
Those of us who hang out there frequently (as I know you do) , also know there is (was?), a vast amount of data. Far too much to even begin listing some of it, including an enormous amount of archived stuff. (faq's, member choice polls, etc).
In so much as the forum software is rather unique, starting some of it from the ground up again would seem like an almost endless task.
We can only hope the majority of the data can somehow be recovered, and Justin and gang can take it from there. Just have to wait and see, I suppose.
But a major bummer for sure. I don't imagine he's been sleeping too well lately.

 

Were the servers that DSLReports ran on plugged into a UPS capable of notifying the servers to do a clean shutdown if the minutes of battery power remaining dropped below X minutes?

Did the UPS(es) conk out before X minutes or before the server(s) could complete the clean shutdown process?

I'm guessing that DSLReports wasn't backed up regularly?

Folks.... back up early, back up often....

EDIT: This is just weird. I've been going to DSLReports just about daily for over a decade now (had an account there since June 2002). I hope it comes back!

 

Me too, I've been there on that site since 2001. It will be a sad moment in Internet history if that site bites the dust. Which unfortunately, I think it will bite the dust.

Even if it does come back, it won't be the same at all. There will probably be hundreds of members who will have to sign up again, massive amounts of threads that will have been lost and even a larger number of posts that will be just simply gone. I doubt that the site will ever come back. I figure that the domain names will be up for auction soon.

Besides... this always was a personal site for Justin. I highly doubt that he'll actually want to pay for the recovery of the data. My personal thoughts on how much it will cost to recover the data will be well over $10,000 USD. My guess... $25,000 USD, maybe more.

Rest in peace DSLReports, rest in peace. You will be remembered as one of the greatest resources of the Internet. Again, rest in peace, you will be sorely missed.
*TAPS playing in the background*

 

Not to mention all of those Direct support forums (AT&T, etc.) that we could use to bypass the provider's horrid phone support. And WOW_Dan who quickly resolved an issue with my home Internet service (not that WOW's phone support is horrid, but my issue would have likely taken longer to resolve if I couldn't have gone directly to WOW_Dan).

This is really gonna suck for those on AT&T UVerse and DSL who have issues and have to deal with AT&T's phone support .

 

I remember reading somewhere where Justin said that DSLReports was on "cruise control for the past year and a half or so"? Can anyone confirm this? Does this mean that he left it up to NAC to take care of just about everything?

 

Yes, this was his quote from April 21st:

Your patience is much apprecated, as you know no matter what stage of popularity
or size dslreports.com achieved it was always a "personal" website and for
the last year+ has been on cruise control. A significant disruption with
purely reactive sysadmin was always a possibility with the wrong kind of luck.
I'll deal with it, without rushing, and see what direction to move things
(cloud, or some other solution) after the dust settles.

 

For those with Twitter accounts may follow | tweet DSLReports @DSLReports

 

Thanks, but we have this thread here.
Does this mean that those who refuse to use things like Twitter, are no longer getting informed or are no longer informing each other here?
There was a good reason why I posted that folks were informing each other for years here at Wilders when DSLR went down and vice versa.
Oh well, the times are changing ..........

 

I also don't use Twitter or Facebook so I sincerely hope that we can all keep each other informed on this forum.

 

The reference to the Twitter account allows those that have Twitter that may glean something developing that has been not already posted here the opportunity to do so.

This thread should be updated as well as so many want to see the site back sooner than later