SnowJapan.TV site issues

[SnowJapan 178]

Unfortunately there seems to be a hardware problem with our snowjapan.tv site server - meaning that the site is currently unavailable.

 

We are at this moment not exactly sure of all the details. Frustratingly, this is out of our direct control at this stage but we are doing what we can to try to get this sorted out as quickly as possible, though I don't know when that will be. We'll update this when more is known.

 

The main site and forums are completely unaffected by this.

 

Thanks

[klingon 10]

Oh dear. Hope that works out good. Server hardware problems are a right pain.

[SnowJapan 178]

Looks like it is going to perhaps take a day or two. We will get things back to normal as soon as we possibly can. Sorry for the disruption.

[Curt 1]

What happened SJ-David?

Sorry to hear about it. Hope you can sort it out quickly.

[SnowJapan 178]

Can't really say at this stage - but will try to explain once things are sorted out. Thanks.

[SnowJapan 178]

The good news this morning is that we now have the site back up online, http://www.snowjapan.tv

 

You might notice however that some more recent files are not up there and we are now in the process of getting that sorted.

 

I will update this again when we have been able to progress on that.

 

Thanks.

[HelperElfMissy 42]

great work David

[SnowJapan 178]

Thanks, Mamabear - unfortunately it's not over yet.

There's a story to be told here, I look forward to telling (perhaps an edited version of) it!

[HelperElfMissy 42]

Originally Posted By: SJ-David

Thanks, Mamabear - unfortunately it's not over yet.
There's a story to be told here, I look forward to telling (perhaps an edited version of) it!

Oh dear!!
That does sound like there is SOME story!!
I sure hope it doesn't totally do your heads in before it is over.

[SnowJapan 178]

Good news this evening as the site is pretty much back to normal with full functionality, albeit unfortunately with recent clips missing.

 

There is some more - hopefully final - testing to do tomorrow and then I hope that we will be able to explain the situation more fully.

 

Thanks for your patience.

[SnowJapan#Andrew 6]

We are still testing to make sure everything is ok, but I would like to explain what happened here.

 

Without getting into too much detail, the server hardware suddenly broke beyond repair.

 

The situation should have been fairly simple to recover because we had been paying for full daily server backups - in fact full backups of the most recent 6 days - to be kept in a secure remote location, as well as a full weekly backup sent to us for our records. That means that at any one time we have 7 full backups of the server. One is a snapshot of the server as it was within 24 hours, and the oldest being from 6 days previous (though we do keep a record of all of those weekly backups we receive).

 

If we are to believe the story we have been provided, not only had the server expired, but all of the backups were also corrupted and unusable - including the ones that we had received weekly and have on hand here.

 

This means that we effectively had no usable site backups.

 

This all from what seemed to be a reputable, accredited hosting company.

 

Luckily, we did have a full manual backup from March - and that is what we now have on our new server.

 

When you pay for comprehensive backups, and to the extent that we were believing we had, you expect to have the piece of mind that in cases of hardware failure, your operation can be easily covered and soon back online. Apart from that, it is very difficult for us to believe that both the server and backups were unrecoverable.

 

Once the initial shock and anger moved on, this has been a very frustrating and annoying experience. There are some other people in a similar situation and there is some talk of legal action, but of course for us the most important thing is our websites. We are still following up on this to try and recover anything more recent.

 

-------

 

So, as I said the site is back to how it was in March. There weren't too many clips added since then, so it could have been much worse.

 

We do have records of who uploaded clips and so over the next few days we plan to contact those people by email to let them know about this situation.

 

If you are reading this and did upload a clip since March, all we can do is apologise about this situation and ask that you please re-upload. Or alternatively send us the clip and we will do it all for you. You may need to re-register.

 

-------

 

There are lessons to be learnt here and we have certainly learnt one or two. You can be sure that we will be doing everything we can to make sure that something like this does not happen again!

 

Apologies for this situation once again.

 

 

 

[klingon 10]

Nightmare!

All the backups also not usable, wow. To say that sucks is an understatement.

Sounds like a very forced story that they are spinning.

Very sorry to hear about that.

[big-will 7]

Sounds like they need closing down for gross negligence.

[veronica 2]

That sounds really awful, so sorry to hear about that.

Glad you could get it back up though.

Otsukaresama.

[thursday 1]

V, you are so considerate. So kind. Want to be penpals?

[SnowJapan 178]

Thanks everyone, everything seems to be pretty much working now.

Will be in touch with people who uploaded videos early in the week to explain.

Thanks.