It may have been mentioned before....

rautio · Post by **rautio** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 1:48 am

Hello again,
We are not working from a duplicate backup. If such a duplicate backup existed we would not need to manually restore items in this way. We have checked trade logs to restore valuable and non-tradeable items where this is possible. Where it isn't possible we are compensating with cash and for lower level characters either Aurulite or Daemon Seals.

Yours sincerely,
---------------------------------------------
European Dark Age of Camelot Community Manager

well I think that is pretty clear, cs told me it was not an option as they did not have a backup to work from. Either the cs has his facts wrong or they were trying to shut me up from my suggestions about comparing from a duplicate backup setup on another server.

Mojo · Post by **Mojo** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 9:17 am

It's odd that the never had tape backups stored at 3rd party loctions mind, unless they had the bandwith to back up over the wire to such a location.

Regardless of the reasons anyhow, it's a pretty sorry situation to get yourself in when you handle so much data. They should have had a working un-corrupt accesable backup no more than a week old.

Dotster · Post by **Dotster** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 10:56 am

1 ? is i no they been working on it but wondering how many they got dun in last week :-) ? i was about 30 away in the numbers about 1 month ago and seems they either forgot me or sumat or they have not been going in the order of complaints.

Ankh Morpork · Post by **Ankh Morpork** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 11:00 am

Dotster wrote:seems they either forgot me

...I bribed them to skip you mate. Sorry

/Ankh

Tare · Post by **Tare** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 12:12 pm

rautio wrote: well I think that is pretty clear, cs told me it was not an option as they did not have a backup to work from. Either the cs has his facts wrong or they were trying to shut me up from my suggestions about comparing from a duplicate backup setup on another server.

If you read my reply carefully, you'll find that I said that GoA did have backups (which ofcourse they do, like any proper company) and that they would have used them if it was possible. The reason why it wasn't possible, according to GoA, was due to the effects one of the scripts given to them by Mythic FUBARed their backups, so they couldn't use them.

Mojo · Post by **Mojo** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 12:26 pm

Tare wrote:If you read my reply carefully, you'll find that I said that GoA did have backups (which ofcourse they do, like any proper company) and that they would have used them if it was possible. The reason why it wasn't possible, according to GoA, was due to the effects one of the scripts given to them by Mythic FUBARed their backups, so they couldn't use them.

Not like any other company if they were that vulnerable to corruption, being over written and no disaster recovery copies. It might be that they didn't deem game info such as items to be important and they only back up characters. The whole Mythic script thing if True should have affected the latest back up and they should really have had others to fall back on even if a little out of date. Once bitten twice shy, I doubt they will let it happen again.

Dotster · Post by **Dotster** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:28 pm

Ankh Morpork wrote:...I bribed them to skip you mate. Sorry

/Ankh

thought so :-(

think i no why u want me 2 chars still stripped they are both luri females how i miss that 1

Ankh Morpork · Post by **Ankh Morpork** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 10:04 pm

Dotster wrote:thought so :-(

think i no why u want me 2 chars still stripped they are both luri females how i miss that 1

Not sure if I dare to answer on that one ]/Ankh[/B]

rautio · Post by **rautio** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 9:32 pm

actually mate I did read your reply. I don't think I explained it well enough what I was saying, so the below is just an explanation not an attack on GOA but a way of getting my point across, apart from the blagging bit hehe.

I said on my right now to GOA
If you were working from a duplicate backup from just before the crash you would be able to instantly see what needed to be replaced

They said to me a GOA employee
We are not working from a duplicate backup. If such a duplicate backup existed we would not need to manually restore items in this way.

Sorry mate but that is clear to me, they did not have a backup they could use in the context of what I said, and what I have tried to say on each reply.

About the script messing up the backups, so what it messed up the restore they done, so they restore it again from tape and do not run a script but do it manually, unless they ran the script on the only usable backup file they had and there were no previous backups they could use, or they backed up over the only usable backup, which would be a very silly thing to do.

if scripting is not an option.
On server 1 load a restore from a backup, on server 2 we have the live game (our server we play on), load up characters on both servers and see what the character had before the crash, then try and replace as best they can the missing items for the character on the live server.

I log a right now saying I have missing items. They load up my char from the restore on server 1 from XXXX date that was usable, then login my character on server 2, look he has all this stuff in the vault, and in his inventory this is so easy we can recreate most of this back onto the live server, aaah apart from this and that, we will compensate for these items only.

Or if they have the access/ facility/ ability, load up the database tables where the information is contained for your character on server 1 from the backup and then compare against the live information on server 2, note I did not say import the information but compare.

very simple to me and a process I have done myself when scripting was not an option. Now it would be too lengthy to load a restore for each character but they would diagnose the best backup they had then work with that one only.

I know what I can do in similar situations and the steps I would take to resolve the issue as I have been there, so a response like a script messed up a backup does not hold with me one tiny bit, so what, restore again and do it manually on a seperate machine, they would of had some idea of when exactly the corruption occurred on mass so that could of been a starting point. I know all to well the process to be taken in a situation like this.

The only thing that can knock it back is a full technical downtime explanation from GOA giving times and reasons and thier process's taken to find a resolution as to why the above could not be done, a simple we had backups but could not use them, or mythic's script messed up our backups or our backups are not compatable with the server is plain old blagging,
Tell us what did you do so backups could not be used for such as, restoring the live server or in creating a duplicate server that you could compare from, why did you not have tapes going back over weeks or months, did you make any changes, load additional software, run any scripts, adjust the hardware in any manner or form, all questions I would have to answer to my superiors

I sent a right now to GOA about lag recently with ping plotting results etc, they send me a reply just under 2 days later "If your problem still exists" if you do not respond we will close the log request, there is no "we are working on your problem", "or could you try this test". To meet SLA's they give me a blagging reply so they can say "we updated the helpdesk" and it will now not show out of SLA on our monthly stats reports, blagging, how many of you have had replies like that on faults you have raised lol

Now I had 6 chars stripped across 2 accounts, but despite that I am still impressed by thier IT guys and gals doing the grind behind the scenes, good job under very difficult circumstances and trying to fix us half blind working from a few logs

it is a hard job when everyone is shouting at you for resolutions and I can appreciate this.

Pheasant · Post by **Pheasant** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 8:46 pm

ok, what 'Facts' did I miss, and where are these 'facts' posted as to what happened.
AFAIK, GOA made no official posts on there website so I'm struggling to see where these 'facts' are. Req's posted some gumph on various websites, but not what i call official, and not what could be classed as 'facts' - I'm sure his reponses have been approved from above so they blur the truth just enough to keep us all guessing....

I just see that GOA didn't notice the corruption, it was left corrupted far to long, and when it was discovered, GOA didn't understand how to deal with it, lets call Mythic....Mythic saw fit to delete all corruption.

Corrupted data is more useful than no data

GOA can't be bothered to invest the man hours and the money to restore ALL deleted items.

IMO GOA choose to delete, GOA should fully restore.

Would you accept if you high street bank deleted your account because it was 'corrupted' then sent you a letter asking how much was in your account?
No you wouldn't, but yet you let the bank hold this 'account' without costing you anything....GOA have charged for this service...

ohh, and backups and disaster recovery are two very different things...people seems to miss the differences....DISASTER recovery....you would recover from this disaster....