Disappearing attachments...

[AKosygin]

I am one of the assisting administrators of FFXIonline.com, and we have been experiencing a problem where our attachments are missing. The post has an attachment ID pointing to the attachment in the attachment table (now 700 MB large and counting), however, recently we have lost a bunch of attachments of no known reason. I have spoken to one of the two administrators (board and server) and they have no clue why this is happening.

We posted a test post and the attachments appear to be working, but there are only a few posts with the attachments actually showing while many are missing. It can be seen here: http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/sho...4&pagenumber=1

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.

[Steve Machol]

Unless someione is specifically deleting these attachments, the only other logical explanation is database corruption. However if that were the case then you'b be getting db error messages.

Did you check the attachment table in the db for the missing attachment ids?

[AKosygin]

Unless someione is specifically deleting these attachments, the only other logical explanation is database corruption. However if that were the case then you'b be getting db error messages.

Did you check the attachment table in the db for the missing attachment ids?

Yes we have, it is missing attachments ids. We have had database problems, but that was to the thread table, not the attachment tables. Could it have had an effect on it?

I checked the post, and it was not deleted by the poster (otherwise the attachment id would be cleared) but the attachment row is missing.

NOTE: This is also the same server as mentioned in this thread: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=85908

[Steve Machol]

If the attachment ids are gone, then so are the attachments. It's possible the same things that were causing the thread table corruption have affected you attachment table as well. It's really difficult, if not impossible, to know exactly what happened to those attachments.

[FFXIOnline]

Gone for good I guess? (Btw, I also a administrator on the same website as Akosygin.)

-FFXIOnline.com

[Steve Machol]

If they are not in the attachment table and you do not have backups then yes, they are gone for good. Sorry.