completely in a panic right now!!!!

[jilly]

My database started throwing an error message today. I have it hosted through a small orange, and so they do all the backups,etc.

So I started a trouble ticket, and the first tech support guy ran what he called an 'integrity repair' on the database, and it didnt work. So then he sent it to the next tech guy, who said:

Hello,
>
> Do you personally have any backups of the database jilly_forums?
>
> The reason why I ask is becasue I attempted to force a fix on the
> threads.MYI file and failed everytime. Then going to your forums page
> would cause the default error page to load up.
>
> So I went and extraceted the backup and we happened to have 2 one from
the
> 16th and one from the 24th and both ended up being corrupt.
>
> So if you do not have a backup the we are left at a state where the
forum
> is no longer existing. I am verry sorry for this but as I started this

> could cause for data loss.
>
I have now asked them to send the ticket up to the owner of the company, Timm Dorr, who's always been able to fix things in the past for me. But now I am in a complete state of panic.. Of course I dont have any backups - I pay them to do a nightly backup for me as part of my hosting, which I assume includes backing up my databases?? right??

Is there a chance that the database became so corrupted or that this tech underling screwed it up so bad that there is no restoring it???

[jilly]

when i have a million other things to do.. and now I panic about database loss - someone please reassure me before I chug too much rum and brandy!!

[KingSpade]

ASO uses CPanel, so if they are doing daily/nightly backups, they should also have backups from 1 week ago and 1 month ago as that is how the CPanel software does backups (unless they otherwise configured it to only do daily).

If you do not regularly optimize your database through vBulletin or via phpMyAdmin, it is possible corruption can occur, especially when data is moving in and out.

Also, please keep this in mind, simply because they provide a backup service does not guarantee the backups will be available. We tell our clients the same thing as with automatic backups, there really is no way to "guarantee" they will work for any reason. Anything can happen, that's why it's always best to work through and make your own backups.

I am sorry to hear of your trouble, however, and I do wish you the best of luck with getting it fixed. From here on out, I would really look to make your own backups as well, manually.

[jilly]

thank you thank you king spade - just having a response helps me a little.. how would I do my own backups? I don't know enough about that to do it on my own yet. I do know some stuff.. help!!!

[KingSpade]

You can do backups via vBulletin through their admin control panel :). Check the maintainence options near the bottom of the left navigation menu.

[1996 328ti]

how would I do my own backups?Or through phpMyAdmin which is probably accessed through your cPanel.

I no longer rely on hosting for my backups.
I used to but their backup still may be 24 hours out of date.
Backup before your do any mods or hacks and a short history of backups.

[jilly]

For some reason I thought it was more complicated...

Where do I 'put' the backups?

I need I guess a basic guide to how to back up my database so I dont sit in a panic like this. I have almost 6 years ofposts and close to a milliion posts. I am going to be devastated (and so will my members) if this data is lost :( :(

[KingSpade]

You can use the vBulletin Admin CP and use the maintainence options as described above, or through phpMyAdmin. If you use vBulletin, you can also specific a directory within your FTP (which you'll need to CHMOD 777 so vBulletin can write to it).

Alternatively, you can simply download them from your server to your computer through vBulletin as well.

The best method is to use SSH, however. I don't know is ASO provides SSH access by default, though if you asked them, that may be a good thing to go ahead and do. CPanel backups work 99% of the time, though the 1% they fail is reason enough not rely on them.

[jilly]

And then I could back up every nigth if I wanted to, right? I'd just have to manually go into the cpanel or wherever and set it to run.. How much space does a backup take? I can't rememebr my database size but i know we had 12,000 members, about 910,000 threads, and a decent amount of attachements, allthough we limited the size of them. I think it was like 712MB - does that sound right?

[1996 328ti]

And then I could back up every nigth if I wanted to, right? I'd just have to manually go into the cpanel or wherever and set it to run.. How much space does a backup take? I can't rememebr my database size but i know we had 12,000 members, about 910,000 threads, and a decent amount of attachements, allthough we limited the size of them. I think it was like 712MB - does that sound right?
If you backup to your server and your server gets hosed, well so does your backup. I save a copy to my local hard drive. I keep 2 or 3 incase my last version was corrupt.

My gzipped backup is 64M.
Threads: 5,706, Posts: 45,265, Members: 2,371
so your figure sounds right.

Backing up does count against your bandwidth allotment.
Another alternative I might do is have a gmail account just for backups setup a cron job to email me a backup.

[jilly]

Backing up does count against your bandwidth allotment.
Another alternative I might do is have a gmail account just for backups setup a cron job to email me a backup.

How would I set that up?

[1996 328ti]

How would I set that up?You will have to do a little searching for that. I don't recall the link.

[KingSpade]

Edit:

Here's a link from George, it includes a backup script link and many others that may be useful to you:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=69071

[Joshs]

I have seen some of my customers use vBulletin's built-in backup capabilities to save a local backup of the database to the server and then setup a cron for rsync to copy their database to their local computer every night. As with most hosting companies, backups are done, but it is always a good idea to do your own backups as most hosting companies do not guarantee that the backups will work.

[Chile]

I usually store the backups to my own hard drive. Until now, I've been on a shared plan so "no root for me" but things are changing.... :D

Steps to backup from phpMyAdmin

How to get there:

- from CPanel main page, select the MySQL databases link
- scroll down to the bottom of the page where the databases are presented (there is usually a phpMyAdmin link there).
- click the link and a new browser window opens.

How to Choose your database and tables for backup

- from the drop down list on the left side of the page, choose the database your forum uses
- click the Export tab from the main section of the page
- Highlight all of the tables listed in the little box (or just click the select all link)
- push the little radio button that reads "complete inserts".

How to obtain the backup

- On the same page, check the "Save As" checkbox
- choose either the "zipped" or "gzipped" radio button
- click the "GO" button
- when the little download pop up window opens, click "save"
- name the backup to something you'll remember (or use the default name).

Chile