Well, it finally happened: the repair forum database shat the bed.

Last September, I moved the Samurai Appliance Repair Forum to a virtual private server (VPS) run by A Small Orange. The reason for the migration was because the server at the previous host, a shared server with 1,000+ other websites on it, was glitchy and unreliable. In my desperation to find a good hosting solution, I was led to believe that a VPS was the solution: more server resources to handle the traffic and the large database, and far fewer other accounts on the same physical server (a handful as opposed to thousands). But all this came with a much higher hosting fee, which I was happy to pay if the end result was a smooth running forum.

But the rancid underworld of web hosting being what it is, the new server was glitchy from the beginning with one problem after another. And rather than diminishing, the glitches perversely multiplied as time went on to the point that I was submitting a trouble ticket every day. When a server is having that many troubles, it’s just a matter of time before a large database, such as the one that constitutes the repair forum, gets corrupted. And that’s exactly what happened.

As it is, you can still access the forum and reply to existing topics but you can’t start a new topic. Oh, it’ll look like you can and you’ll go on composing your plaintive plea for appliance repair help, content in knowing that you’ll soon have expert guidance, but after you’ve submitted the topic, it can’t be viewed. It appears in the topic list but, when you click it, you get nothing, nada, just a blank white page on your screen.

I’ve tried all the usual database repair techniques using phpMyAdmin but no-go, Budrow. So, I’ve disabled new user registration at the forum. No sense having folks join a broken forum where they can’t start a new topic.

I’m in the process of installing a backup of the database on a new server at Dreamhost, the same crew that has faithfully hosted my personal blog for two years now. The backup database may have the same corruption, so I may not gain anything for the trouble; I won’t know for sure until the forum is up and running at the new server. But at least I won’t be paying hefty hosting fees for a VPS that needs daily babysitting and handholding just to run an appliance repair forum.

The domain name for the forum, ApplianceGuru.com, is propagating to the new server now and should be complete in 48 hours. I’ll post updates here. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: The repair forum is open for bidness, dispensing appliance repair wisdom to the masses. Come git you some.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 8:30 am and is filed under Website Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.