What happened??!?!?!?!

[stuart]

This past weekend, my biggest fear came true.

Interbasket was caught in a major server problem at my web host on April 21st. All my files were corrupted along with the backup files for the site. The good news is that I have all the information outside of the forum (profiles, Olympics, index etc) backed-up on my home personal computer, the bad news is that ALL FORUM threads, posts, images, and member profiles were corrupted and have been lost forever.

Needless to say, I was and am still pretty devastated. I was on a shared server with other websites and am certain that many of them are just as angry with our webhost as I am.

In the mid-afternoon on Saturday, I attempted to log into IBN to find that IBN's forum link wasn’t working. I thought to myself “Now, what?!” as I have been less-than-pleased with my web host the last 10-12 months.

I then attempted IBN’s homepage and found that a general “No page is configured at this address” page… which set off a lot of alarms for me. Normally, I would find out the entire site was down because of bandwidth issues or a billing discrepancy, but to see an actual webpage parked where my homepage was normally sitting signified that this wasn't an ordinary problem – either my webhost hadn’t had the chance to restore the backups or there were no backups to restore.

I confirmed a day later that the latter was true. I spent the entire day trying to contact many members of the forum and trying to get them to spread the word. All the while, I was caught in-between anger and sadness trying to get ahold of anyone that I could yell at. Those threads and posts and member profiles were part of IBN history. To me, it was like losing precious photo albums in a house fire. It wasn’t so much the threads, so much as chronicling our history.

I knew I had no control over it and yelling at them wouldn't do any good (though I really really wanted to), so I started planning out what I needed to do to get the site back up and keep it consistently live.

I began to look at this as a new start. I’ve wanted to change web hosts for some time now, but was afraid to. Ironically, I was worried that in the transition from affordablehost.com to a more reputable one would cause IBN to lose/corrupt information.

The irony of this situation is not lost on me.

However, with this recent happening, I am happy to move on from affordablehost.com, it started as a small local company where one could contact Tina, the woman who started the site whenever there was a problem and she would take care of it (I had her cell phone number!).

Then in late 2005, affordablehost was bought out by a large Canadian web host and from there, my problems began – my site was brought down because they thought I hadn’t paid (I had in fact prepaid for two years), they brought down two of my other sites without contacting me, they had a couple minor outages, and now this, all in about 6-7 months.

So I’ve frantically moved on to a more reputable host and I am pretty excited about it because they offer so much more for about the same pricing. This unfortunate event also gave us the chance to upgrade the forum, it’s much more powerful and is a newer version of what we were running on the old forum.

I want to preserve as much as we can control, so any ideas would be greatly appreciated. One thing I can control is changing the time in which you registered, so re-register with IBN 3.0 and contact me if you remember when you first registered on IBN 1.0. (If you look at my profile I was able to change my registration to August 27th, 2003 when IBN first went live)

So if you are interested, PM Matt or I with your old username (if different), when you registered on the old forum and one of us will change it over the next few weeeks.

I will be spending the next few weeks trying to get this new product off the ground and even though the majority of our history was lost, I hope that you’ll stick around to make some new history – you’ll find that with some of the newer changes that it’ll be well worth your time, are really useful, and will provide a much needed shot in the arm for IBN. So I am done feeling bad (mostly) I am ready to move on. Use this thread to vent, yell, scream, complain... get it all out whether it is at me or IBN's old web host.

Take your time, when you're done, I want to welcome you to Interbasket.net Version 3.0

Stuart

[stuart]

I also have to ask for your patience as all the rules, options, access that were available to member and moderators on the old forum are not in place yet. I wanted to get the site up as soon as I could for the Euroleague Final Four and NBA playoffs are upon us.

We'll be working hard to get it right and don't hesitate to start a new thread in the suggestions forum to remind us.

Stuart

[Joško Poljak Fan]

maaan....
too bad, I mean there was enourmous ammount of data (and probably members) lost now... :(
...it's a new start, but I guess there isn't really any competition at international bball forums- we'll stay the best ;)

...at least I have some spare time to post in here for the next week having few days off.

[Trifilli]

Yeah mate,

it's bad that we lost all the valuable threads, but it's a new start and we'll fill the forum in no time with information again ;)
Just one question: how can I stay logged in, I just wrote a pretty long post in the International Basketball forum and it'd log me out after some time, so whenever I previewed my post I was logged out. Is there any chance to change that? Thanks and cheers,

Trif

[Digdis]

Good luck bringing the best basketball forum there is back to life. Been lurking most of the time, but this was a real bad surprise (to say the least). So -good luck again.
D.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Stuart maybee there should be a redirection on the old adress, since I found the new adress by coincidence sinec i was barely visiting the interbasket's main page...

[sinobball]

Let the bygones be gone... New start is good

[avduka2]

damn, everything lost...even my provocative posts.....guess i have to pick a fight with lithuanians again.....

[stuart]

Guys, thanks for the responses.... glad to see some of you made it here. We're going to get this right this time, I've moved on to a new webhost with better options and will offer backup of our information.

If you are friends with other members, pass the info that we've moved on, it's going to be a slow process to get back to where we were, but I am confident we can get there.

Matiz, Trif, i'll look into those issues.

Stuart

[Phantim3dx]

im sorry to hear of what had happened. im still here though, i post mroe on this forum board than all the other combined ive joined over the years, thats how much itnerested i am in this place!

[stuart]

I hated losing all the great threads from the old forum. HOwever, I think I may have found a way to try and rescue some of that old info...

If you have a favorite thread that you want to TRY and recover, I would go into Google, search for the old thread's title and you may be able to find the thread. If you find the thread, click on Google's "cached" this will bring up a text version backup from Google's servers. I don't know how long they keep the information, but I am going to do the best I can to recover more threads...

For example, I was able to recover information (no photos) from the old Andrea Bargnani thread (http://forums.interbasket.net/showthread.php?p=30)

(new link: http://forums.interbasket.net/showthread.php?p=30)

Stuart

[Juan Carlos Nadal]

Bloody hell guys.

I just found out about what happened from Zalgirinis and all I have to say is that I am devastated. I may have been away for awhile due to my busy schedule and this is my first post in 2006 if I am not mistaken but IBN is part of my life and I am truly and honestly guttered for what happened. Given that there is not much we can do to correct the situation we can at least take advantage of the situation and make a brand new start. We have established strong foundations and the rise of IBN to its previous levels is only a matter of time.

I personally, and so do I believe the rest of the older guys in here, are willing to help Stuart in every way that we can.

[Jokinen]

I can't believe what happened, this feels so bad, so many valuable information was lost...

Now, its time to be positive and start again. I'm sure that we can make a new and even better IBN.

IBN will be back on its feet!!!

[stuart]

Again, thanks for the promising words everyone... I am certain that as time goes on, we can definitely recover from this. Until then, I am in the midst of restoring member information (posts and register date) - check out the Project: Member Info (http://forums.interbasket.net/Until then, I am in the midst of restoring all member information - check out the Project: Member Info thread)thread

http://forums.interbasket.net/showthread.php?t=25

Stuart

[greece4]

congratuations guys...
it's such a pitty the old stuff got lost, but u still do GREAT GREAT job!! :) :)

[-K2-]

IBN is actually back on its feet :cool:

the best poster of em all have registered again

welcome back Jokinen!!!! :p

[Jan van Grabski]

THis....This...This is F.. Terrible. Really. I dont know what to say, and it is all my fault. I hope forum will recover.....:(

[stuart]

greece4, josean, NaFion, welcome back.

NaFion, Yeah, it's horrible. I've had about 4 days to heal and move on, I know what you are going through... we need your odd humour more than ever :D

Stuart

[mvblair]

Thanks for the hard work, Stuart. I didn't do a thing to help out, and this is my first day back.

Anyhow, it's great to see everybody here. I feel like we just had a nuclear war, and now we're all meeting at the library or something...:D

Matt

[Basketball GOD]

Yeah, I also think that redirection is needed because I by surprise found this forum today.

And Stuart don't be mad and sad - threads can be created. The only concern has to be member number because at this moment there are only 47.

[stuart]

Thanks Matt, useless.. .i've restored both your original information.

We'll fight and live on!

Stuart

P.S. Matt I also got your email, no sweat, we all have lives outside of IBN, the good thing is that I can recover information, post, and edit while at my "real job"

[23_for_life]

Yes, sad, sad, sad. We had a heck of a basketball knowledge database, but hey it is only a matter of time before it is like that again. Look at it this way, better that happened now and not when we are a lot bigger, with this new host and stuff we may be ready for anything in the future.

Stuart and Matt, if you need any kind of help, please let me know. I'll find some time to help you guys out with all the work that needs to be done.

Nice to see you all again.

[stuart]

It's been a long time 23 for life, where have you been? Thanks for the offer of help, the best thing now is to hang out and post, help us to rebuild IBN. If anything larger comes around, I will be sure to keep you (and all the others that have kindly emailed us; Zalg, Trif, CFFI, JCN, Josean, Acetone, jramoyo, jokinen, matiz etc.) in mind.

Cheers!

Stuart

[23_for_life]

I posted on Thursday after a loooong absence and then I went out of town for 5 days. I came back yesterday and I had no e-mails on my inbox telling me that people posted to that thread, so I was wondering what has happened and I come in today to find out about the problem.

Well Stuart, with the "new" baby (she is now 1 year 4 months old) and trying to run 3 businesses, it was hard to post. But hey no one talks basketball like IBN so the last 6 months I have been meaning to post and for one reason or another I couldn't. But I will squeeze some time here and then to re-build IBN.

Man, everytime I needed some info, I just came in here and look at old posts and I found what I needed, sucks those old threads are gone. Maybe we should do the new member introduction thread and the demographics thread again, for all new coming members.

Later

[-K2-]

and a picture thread of all members and the funny pic threads

and all thet great things that made this forum great :D

[YYY]

Are you going to get any compensation from that hosting company which screwed up this forum? :rolleyes:

[stuart]

Are you going to get any compensation from that hosting company which screwed up this forum? :rolleyes:

Unlikely, although I had about one-year left of prepaid hosting. I am trying to get that money back now, but it doesn't look good. YYY? Who are you? or... who were you? :)

Stuart

[YYY]

I wasn't very old member, got registered only like a month before this accident. My old account name was Spitfire, but nevermind about it. I like this one more. :P

[fezqo]

Hi guys, this is a fresh start anyhow, keep up the great work!

[stuart]

Hi guys, this is a fresh start anyhow, keep up the great work!

Good to see you Fezqo, welcome back.

I'll change your user info as soon as I get the chance...

Stuart

[Levenspiel]

at last, I found you guys!
it's nice to be back again, and that's the most important thing :)
I hope we can recover everyone...

[Marius123]

Cheer up, stuart, the forum will come alive again very soon.

Hopefully, the damage in terms of lost members won't be big.

[stuart]

Hey sariss, marius123,

Thanks, this week is much better, a lot of good and positive progress has been made/discovered the last few days (fixed the old link to redirect, thus old members are now finding their way back easier, learning new manual ways to recover threads etc.)

Welcome back, guys. And welcome back to fezqo, kestas, Sabas 11, rchos7, joker, toxicity, TRI, epadfield (Erin!), and whoever else registered over the weekend, i've adjusted your member info back to what they were before the blackout.

Stuart

[Nakz]

Damn what a stupid forum hosts they were :confused: Especially when they don't do anything bout it, not even a compensation or anything. But well shit happens...
Positively seen, this can be a new fresh start. After all you don't really have to worry B-ball fans will jump to other forums, because there is no other good B-ball forum on the internet. So I'm glad this one is up again! :D

[stuart]

Positively seen, this can be a new fresh start. After all you don't really have to worry B-ball fans will jump to other forums, because there is no other good B-ball forum on the internet. So I'm glad this one is up again! :D

Thanks for the kind words. It's good to see you made it, nakz.
I'll change your member info within the day.

Cheers!

Stuart

[Ballstorm]

I've just reliazed what had happened on the site on the April 21th . It is really a shock but I hope that it will not prevent interbasket from continuing to help basketball fans from all around the world to meet and talk about their favourite sport . I have not been around much of late and I will do my best to take part into the re-birth of the site :) .

A big "hello" to all of you guys , including the ones I don't know yet and who will have the uncommon pleasure to read my prose later on .

[Levenspiel]

welcome Ballstorm, the one with the Nightmare Before Christmas avatar :)

[stuart]

I've just reliazed what had happened on the site on the April 21th . It is really a shock but I hope that it will not prevent interbasket from continuing to help basketball fans from all around the world to meet and talk about their favourite sport . I have not been around much of late and I will do my best to take part into the re-birth of the site :) .

A big "hello" to all of you guys , including the ones I don't know yet and who will have the uncommon pleasure to read my prose later on .

Thomas, I trust my email reached you. I have been trying to get into contact with you (and about 30 others) to let you know what happened just in case you were trying to reach the site. I've restored your old information. Welcome back, friend.

Stuart

[-K2-]

yeah

I have been trying to contact an administrator for the last 3 days and he still have not replied to my PM :rolleyes:

[Ballstorm]

Thomas, I trust my email reached you. I have been trying to get into contact with you (and about 30 others) to let you know what happened just in case you were trying to reach the site. I've restored your old information. Welcome back, friend.

Stuart

Thanks for all , Stuart .

[stuart]

Are you going to get any compensation from that hosting company which screwed up this forum? :rolleyes:

Just a little update: today, I got my prorated refund, it's not mind-boggling amount of money, but it's a nice chunk of change and I feel *a little bit* better about what has happened...

Stuart

[Crazy Fan From Idaho]

I'm glad you got some of your money back......but I am still bummed.

Losing what we had was like if I lost my hard drive full of Sabonis videos and pics. Irreplaceable. One of the reasons I posted on those pic threads was because I KNOW that MY computer isn't 100% sure. Even though I knew IBN wasn't 100% sure, either, I thought it was more reliable than that!

But it's not just the loss of data and info that pains me. All those lost posts were a sort of blog or diary or chronicle of our site from its inception and the relationships that have developed. That will never be recovered.

IBN is really different now. It's still great, thanks to everyone, but personally I feel like I have lost connection with what IBN was through all the challenges of getting it off the ground and finally seeing it really take a life of its own.

Just random thoughts from CFFI......a stranger to 95% of IBNers now. :(

[elaj]

Just random thoughts from CFFI......a stranger to 95% of IBNers now. :(

Post more and you won't be a stranger anymore. ;)

[-K2-]

I'm glad you got some of your money back......but I am still bummed.

Losing what we had was like if I lost my hard drive full of Sabonis videos and pics. Irreplaceable. One of the reasons I posted on those pic threads was because I KNOW that MY computer isn't 100% sure. Even though I knew IBN wasn't 100% sure, either, I thought it was more reliable than that!

But it's not just the loss of data and info that pains me. All those lost posts were a sort of blog or diary or chronicle of our site from its inception and the relationships that have developed. That will never be recovered.

IBN is really different now. It's still great, thanks to everyone, but personally I feel like I have lost connection with what IBN was through all the challenges of getting it off the ground and finally seeing it really take a life of its own.

Just random thoughts from CFFI......a stranger to 95% of IBNers now. :(
I understand

its hard when your favorite poster (in your case, me) dont have time to post like he used to do :(