Maybe we should send a message to GOA?

[Xest]

Im not surprised you really think like that. Tell me Xest, do you ever leave the house or is the ego not fitting through the door anymore?

No, I took my photos of Canada and the US from hacking into a NASA spy satellite. Funny how you comment on me not going out yet you're the one who still holds a grudge against me and can't let go after all this time, if your life is so exciting and busy you'd have forgotten about any problems with me long ago.

An intrigueing point. Obviously times available where rollbacks are available from are times when a backup is made. There's no easy feasible way for a system to 'know' if the data is corrupted or not. For a dynamic, continously changing set of data you cannot create hashes or CRC-checksums. The amount of 'AI' required for a system to see if a database is corrupted is very hard to create. Trash would be relatively easy to recognize (tho not even realmtime most likely) but dupes and cross-links on a big database is almost impossible to do.

This was true around 10 years ago, but modern systems are more than capable of performing error checking and highlighting issues long before 66,000 records become corrupted Corruption of a database should be noticed long before that. Do you really beleive all the fortune 500 companies for example have database systems that are equally prone to corrupted backup data that's entirely unrecoverable?

Well 4 weeks was a number you came up with (how far backups of the system should made). I already pointed out 4 weeks is silly - as restoring a 4-week old database is something nobody really wants.

4 weeks old data is a billion times better than no data at all.

Ehmmm.. What makes you think they DONT have a backup of 4 weeks old? More to the point: The current solution offered is considered better by GOA then a (bigger) rollback. In the worst case scenario they could have been forced to rollback to a time where the database wasnt corrupted (yet). Your jumping to conclusions that there is no backup at all available. More likely then not there is, but GOA decided NOT to rollback to that backup. Most likely GOA figured (for example) a rollback of a week would been worse then 66.000 items purged. I dont know the exact details on that decision, and nobody does except GOA-employees. I do know for a fact Im far happier with the current solution then a week-rollback. I could have kissed my new druid-template goodbye and remake it. Including asking guildies to craft MP for me... again !

Fair comments - my point is that either way this is unacceptable, this amount of downtime and data loss isn't possible in a company with proper systems in place to deal with this kind of problem and that's the core issue here - it doesn't matter the details, it's the amount of downtime and data loss that's the real issue and shouldn't be possible.

[Tare]

We all know that answering help requests pretty much all help requests within a day and more than half of them within the hour is fucking shit service. GoA's a decent company with some flaws.

[Guinnessrules]

To respond to the topic, which many has seemed to forget, i won't cba to cancel any subs, as if i got something better to do in my spare time i do it.
And a word of advice to Xest, as mod ur supposed to be a good example. So the original remark u made wasn't that wise.
As a mod u should know better.
But anyone can make misstakes, but only a few seems to know when they have made one.
But in the question of ur continuense as a mod i couldn't care less whatever.
Just try to think before u act from now on.
And that goes for everyone, including me.

Anyway, tomorrow we're back up to see how much we lost.
Tho wish goa had made a list of everyone they deleted items from, as i know i prolly won't remember what i had in my vaults on any of my chars.
I mean, who keeps a list of whats in there????

Cya out there tomorrow hopefully.
/love G.

[Cryn]

There's no easy feasible way for a system to 'know' if the data is corrupted or not. For a dynamic, continously changing set of data you cannot create hashes or CRC-checksums. The amount of 'AI' required for a system to see if a database is corrupted is very hard to create. Trash would be relatively easy to recognize (tho not even realmtime most likely) but dupes and cross-links on a big database is almost impossible to do.

You don't need to write clever AI. As part of any project to change your system, you should perform an appropriate amount of testing. For a change as radical as clustering, I'd have thought extensive system testing would have been done.

You don't need to look at the data within the database, as a thorough test of your system will show you how it manifests (in this case in its effects on inventory items).

As you pointed out earlier, we have very little information, so we can't say if testing would have picked up the data issues. However, I do feel with something as important as clustering going on it's quite worrying that such a thing could be missed. Surely when merging two systems, data issues are exactly the sort of thing you'd be concerned about.

GOA would be by no means unique in failing to test the system properly as part of their clustering work. However, whenever lack of testing bites you on the bum, you ARE responsible. Just because a lot of other companies have processes as risky as yours, doesn't mean it's okay.


I do take your point earlier about people becoming software experts on web forums, but equally, just because it is a web forum it doesn't preclude the possibility there are some experienced software professionals contributing to the discussion.

[stupeh]

Anyway, tomorrow we're back up to see how much we lost.
Tho wish goa had made a list of everyone they deleted items from, as i know i prolly won't remember what i had in my vaults on any of my chars.
I mean, who keeps a list of whats in there????

If they made a list it would be even easier for people to lie about what they lost, this way there is a chance someone will report a missing item, and GoA can tell them to bugger off, as nothing was deleted.

[Guinnessrules]

If they made a list it would be even easier for people to lie about what they lost, this way there is a chance someone will report a missing item, and GoA can tell them to bugger off, as nothing was deleted.

So i will get screwed twice for not keeping a list of my items.
Well fair enough. Just hope i remember some of the good items i got/had.
Still wish they would move the english servers outside of france, OT still sux.

[Lieva]

requiel did say they had a list of userloggons whos items were corrupted.
I dont understand why they cant mass email - ok it would take a while but..

[Cryn]

Good point, I should have mentioned that in my reasons why I think GOA provide a poor service. Anyone remember the 3 month period last year where we had constant lag and random LDs?

Of course, we couldn't make any comments about GOA for that one either, could we? It was all down to Open Transit - not me guv, nothin I can do about it.

[Guinnessrules]

Good point, I should have mentioned that in my reasons why I think GOA provide a poor service. Anyone remember the 3 month period last year where we had constant lag and random LDs?

Of course, we couldn't make any comments about GOA for that one either, could we? It was all down to Open Transit - not me guv, nothin I can do about it.

Well, u can't blame GOA for that one m8, after all it WAS mythic that decided to use GOA that happens to be a french company if i'm not missinformed. I play some poker on expekt.com, their servers r in france......... guess what???? It lags badly sometimes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Guinnessrules]

requiel did say they had a list of userloggons whos items were corrupted.
I dont understand why they cant mass email - ok it would take a while but..

Very good idea hun, imo i think they could hire some extra peeps for a short period of time to do the emailing. That would be a nice service that i would welcome.
That would show they really givf a flying **** about us. It might cost a little but the PR-value would be very big.
Requiel, think u could check it out m8?