World: r3wp

My world, linux version running on linux machine, has just become 
unreachable since noon after working for years. Nothing changed on 
that side - the altme.com web site reports it as reachable. I can 
connect to it from the linux box it's on, but not from the W XP box 
sitting alongside nor any other.

un-reserved name for the world

updated the server and now accessible

Is this world much faster since Carl reinstalled it ?

yes, pm'ing is now usable again

maybe I can return to my old persona ....

You should give it a try. Whatever was done to this world, it was 
good :) Let's hope it stays that way for a while.

Looks like the linode instance it was running on was pehaps overbooked!

http://www.rebol.com/linode-speed.html

Looks like an HDD going south ...

Might also explain the file corruption for restored groups here.

actually, the corruption is easily explained by the backup taking 
place at the same time of someone posting to those groups

there should be no corruption, when proper back-up tools are used, 
no? :-) (e.g. shadow-copy principles, etc.)

if Carl is just doing a TAR while the altme server is running, it's 
not strange that one or two files don't get backed up correctly. 
a quick workarourd is to keep more than just the last backup, as 
the chance of a file missing from two backups is pretty small.


of course, ideally one would be using ZFS and backing up from a snapshot...

the workaround is to use proper back-up tools, not just tarring the 
stuff :-)

It doesn't help that the client can't detect the issue and save the 
old data somehow. Once you sync a corrupted group, your local store 
is gone (unless you're backing them up locally ;-).

(I am backing them up locally, by the way, if Carl needs anything)


Proper backup tools can't do anything against the altme server overwriting 
the files. Either your filesystem supports snapshots, or the altme 
server has to support the backup operation directly at least by suspending 
file activity while the files are being copied (or, the file storage 
has to be designed so that files are immutable, that way at the very 
least you can't lose old data because of overwriting)

is it just me or does this mean that moderation and message alteration 
is actually possible... 

it would only require a few changes to the server and client so they 
support this feature.

damn!  my whole user group disapeared !!!!

(which means I've just loast every Private message sent to all of 
you... 4.5 MB of converations :-(

It rewrites your local file, right? It seems that Carl's concept 
of  - keep things simple - in fact turned into - constantly try to 
reinvent the wheel, never finish it properly, don't scale well, or 
at all.

Is there a problem with AltME at all? All this that has happened 
seems to not be directly related to AltME, but to the server and 
the backup scheme.

Partially so - but - plain files instead of DB storage of messages. 
If I understand it correctly, e.g. Links group here, got purged, 
and it refers to 153.set - old messages are gone, without the notice.

Henrik, the problem is that the server overwrites the client even 
when the server is wrong (corruption on the server side). It would 
be nice if it recognized the condition and recovered files from the 
clients.


The other problem is: can you think of a backup scheme to avoid this? 
(Note, we're speculating on the base of guesses, but still.)

Backup scheme: I suppose the only way is really some kind of snapshot, 
or by having AltME server pack a single file once an hour, that a 
backup system then can grab and stow somewhere.

or you just run dropbox and have it backup for you automatically 
....

does it do snapshots of all files simultaneously?

serially I would have thought

Okay, so.... I just had to reinstall AltME on linux, so here's some 
things I noticed:

*It took me a little over 4 minutes to resync a little over 60 MB 
of data (checked net connection for amount transferred)

*SQLite and Advocacy both got stuck at the end, re-sycing over and 
over until I restarted AltME

*I clicked through everything because I didn't know there was a "Mark 
all messages as read" button, until I re-selected my custom dividers...

Thank you for noticing me of a button to mark all messages read :-)

Yeah, it is kind of hidden...  I probably wouldn't have thought to 
look in the Divider settings for it, either

I just had a VERY strange problem in altme... its the second time 
this week and its never happened before...


I stopped receiving notifications from altme, but it was still linked 
in, and not reporting Internet busy....

I just did a logout/login and saw that 7 groups had new messages 
in them  !!!

yes, it happens here too. I think that there might be "internet busy" 
for a while, but then altme reconnects, but does not receive new 
messages (just speculation, not observation)

the strange thing is that pn both occasions I remember hearing a 
new message "ping" and there being nothing new... which is a bit 
strange...

Maxim -- I see that regularly....It's the remnants of the old resync 
bug.

Luckily, logging off and back in seems to resync correctly -- not 
like the old days when getting groups to sync properly was capricious.

And sometimes, you'll see the All Groups heading in red, but no group 
heading below it is in red. It's like a phantom group has just received 
a message from Jim Phelps.

uh oh, belongs to Vent, but - damned, I lost my private messages 
too :-)

(we probably all did)

I still have all my private messages - so the victimise-user config 
setting must still be below my threshhold.
Sympathies to those who lost theirs.

Sunanda - so back-it-up promplty, maybe you will follow us with next 
restart of AltME - one never knows its magic suprises:-)

at least my PM chat is now really quick  ;-)

:-)

Good advice, Petr!
Max, Petr -- I've just sent you each a test PM. Did you get them?

hmm, strange - I received your PM, but your name in the list was 
not in red letters ....

same here...

Strange ... I saw red from both of you.

Did my name float to the top of the list, or was it buried a long 
way down?

It was at the top of the list.

I believe subsequent posts will be red ... try to send a ping to 
me ....

OK, it works ...

That way, we can miss if someone contacts us. So the urge is to check 
if some name is at the top of the list, and better check from time 
to time ....