UPDATE: All Contest Comments have been restored! Any comments that were made today will be restored over the next hour or so. I’m working on it now.
Last night I was trying to convert the main blog engage website to another software package. Seeing I was only modifying this specific section I only took a back up of that main site database. Little did I know installing this script would automatically delete all preexisting tables in that specific database.
I’m not pointing fingers and if anyone is to blame it should be me. I am the admin of this website and I should had taken the back up. For this I am sorry a thousand times over.
The earliest back up I had of the wordpress blog was from Oct 21. Last night I sat in front of my computer and went back into Google cache and re posted all the comments and articles that I could possibly see.
All the Guest Blogger Articles have been restored but unfortunately I couldn’t get all the comments back. I did however get over 120 comments back into the database by manually entering them.
Some of the comments I couldn’t find e-mail addresses for so this is why you no longer see their picture. All I could get was their website url, name and comment. I also restored all of our guest blogger comment replies as well.
Due to this unforeseen incident I must extend the contest so other bloggers including yourself have the opportunity to make up the comments you may have lost. I don’t want to push it out to long because I’m assuming you are all excited to find out who the winners are.
New Contest Deadline
The new contest deadline will be November 22 which will allow all our guest blogger contestants one additional week to gain back any comments they may have lost during the last 10 days.
Please note this extension is only for marketing, promotion and comments. No additional articles will be accepted again this is only an extension for members already entered into the best of the guest blogger contest.
Being a blogger I know how you feel right now but I plead with you to be positive and look at this as an opportunity to improve your over all score and gain additional comments from your online social networking friends.
I could barely sleep last night because I was dreading this article. I’m sincerely apologetic for the set back I have caused for some of our later guest bloggers and the loss of their comments.
If you have any questions, concerns or venting please feel free to take it out in a comment below.
If you have any missing comments that are still in your e-mail please forward them to me with the article url they belong to. I will add your comments back ASAP!
Be sure to add me as a friend, bbrian017
Twitter, bbrian017
Thanks,
Brian
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Twitter: Daniel
These things happen to the best of us. I don’t know one person that doesn’t have a horror story like this, so no worries! Things will be okay.
Daniel Snyder recently posted..Promote your blog by Promoting Others
Twitter: bbrian017
Thanks for the positive feedback Daniel. Hopefully all the others will see it the same way. I hate to extend the contest but I think it’s the only fair thing I can do. The rest is out of my hand!
Good thing for google cache. I walked about this at Mitch Mitchell blog, where he shared that the same google cache saved some of his work after a similar mistake.
By the way if you are on a shared account there are usually daily backups and you could ask your hosting provider to provide the latest one to you.
If you are on a dedicated server you should get a cron job to do a daily backup, things like this can happen when you less expected.
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Twitter: bbrian017
This is it. From here on out any changes I’m backing up my entire server. Who writes an install script to delete all existing tables. Who cares if there’s tables just install the ones you need and go. I can’t think of any software that does that. I have never seen such a thing. Either way it’s my fault I should had done a backup.
Twitter: BlazingMinds
No worries Brian, these things can happen and they usually happen at times when there are competitions or something running
Blazing Minds recently posted..Comic Book- Black Opus Vol 1 Review
Twitter: bbrian017
Thanks for the support Karen, I couldn’t even sleep last night I was so worried about the lost comments.
Twitter: BloggerCodeDish
@ Brian – Were you able to recover all of the guest blogging contest articles?
Twitter: bbrian017
Yes all the guest blogger articles have been recovered and re posted. Thankfully because we have some great content here for the contest.
Twitter: BloggerCodeDish
Are you still in the process of reposting some of the guest blog articles because I looked on the list on the “Let the Best of the Guest Blogger Contest Judging Begin” post and neither my name or article was listed.
My Contest Entry: 5 Simple Ways to Increase RSS Subscriptions
Twitter: bbrian017
Jaleesa, I’m sorry I must had missed your article originally I didn’t see it in the cache. I’m adding it right now. Can you link me to your contest article on your blog I also can’t seem to find that. Thanks for letting me know I want everyone to be included naturally.
Twitter: BloggerCodeDish
Sure!
My Personal Blog Article:
http://bmfreep.blogspot.com/2010/09/blog-engages-1000-usd-post.html
My Blog Engage Contest Article:
http://www.blogengage.com/blogger/5-simple-ways-to-increase-rss-subscriptions/
Twitter: myblog2day
Don’t worry bbrian, it’s normal incident. Just take it easy, I’ll reply some of the missing comments again. Good luck to all the contestant!
Regards,
Lee
Twitter: bbrian017
Lee Ka Hoong, thank you for understanding. if you want to e-mail me any comments I have missed I will add them back no problem. Simply forward the comment to my admin at blogengage dot com e-mail and I will add them ASAP. You can also do it and I will approve them for you in the back end.
Twitter: Gloson
Hey Brian.
So sorry to hear about this error.
I understand, because last time I had the same experience when my former blog host “accidentally” deleted my blog!
All the posts and comments – everything – was gone! Fortunately I had backups, but the latest backup was last month. So I also had to manually restore all of them.
You can read about my whole story here and how I restored everything. It was indeed hard work! LOL – http://www.glosonblog.com/my-former-blog-host-accidentally-deleted-my-blog-and-how-i-fixed-it/
Cheers!
Gloson =)
Gloson recently posted..My Entry for the Awesome BlogEngage Contest
Twitter: bbrian017
Gloson your story is a very sad one. To lose all your comments in that one month and articles must had been devastating. I feel your pain and at the same time want to thank you for being so easy going during these difficult times. I appreciate your friendliness.
Twitter: BloggerCodeDish
I too have had this incident occur once or twice. Although my blog is not with WordPress, I can definitely say that I feel your pain, but at least you were able to recover your posts though, I had to replace about mine from memory! No worries though we all learn and grow
Twitter: bbrian017
Jaleesa, I should know better now this is not the first time it has happened to me. I just didn’t expect it to affect the entire database and wipe everything out. That’s it though backups all the time now no messing around.
Twitter: DocSheldon
Morning, Brian-
First of all, don’t beat yourself up over this. I have never heard of an install package deleting all tables. What idiocy on the developer’s part!
I doubt anyone here hasn’t suffered something similar due to not having backed up prior to making a change. It’s like falling off a bicycle on your first try… everyone has to do it.
For my part, I seem to have lost only a dozen or so comments, with their responses. Unfortunately, although I have been saving about a week’s worth of email notifications in my mail server, I just, last night, cleaned it out, so no luck there.
There’s a valuable lesson in this for all of us, too. Obviously… backing up can turn an “Oh, crap!” moment into a “Phew! That was close” episode. If just one of us learns from your experience, and starts maintaining current backups, it could prevent a major loss of data. That, IMO, makes it worthwhile.
So, onward and upward! The world didn’t end… we just got another week to promote our entries!
Doc Sheldon recently posted..What Does the Future Hold for Us
“I have never heard of an install package deleting all tables. What idiocy on the developer’s part! ”
The installation instructions clearly state that you should create a *new* database. And during the installation there is a notice in red warning that all tables will be deleted. I never expected anyone to install multiple CMSs in a single database. It’s really not a good idea to do that because if one application is hacked, then the hacker has access to everything in the database. And since each CMS should be installed in a separate database, is it really so idiotic to delete existing tables when doing a fresh install? Either way, I’m sorry my script caused so much grief.
Twitter: Benin
Thanks for letting us know Brian. This is such a terrific resource that you’ve created…So really…Who can be mad at you for anything, Man? So the moral of the story is don’t be so hard on yourself, things will work themselves out. Thanks!
Twitter: kikolani
The fact that you went through all the articles’ caches to restore the comments you could shows how dedicated you are to everyone here. That was pretty awesome!
I think for some contestants, this might be a way to not only get their other comments back, but promote to get more comments. I’m sure that in the end, it will turn out alright.
Twitter: bbrian017
UPDATE: All Contest Comments have been restored! Any comments that were made today will be restored over the next hour or so. I’m working on it now.
Twitter: DocSheldon
You rock, Brian! I hated to see you feeling so guilty about something that really should have been perfectly safe. But your efforts are greatly appreciated!
Doc Sheldon recently posted..What Does the Future Hold for Us
Twitter: israelimom
Been there, done that… Google cache is a lifesaver. We live and hopefully learn
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Twitter: 3_quid
When I first noticed that my comments are reducing, I thought that I miscounted my comments including mine.
But this really bothers me because I have a list of URL’s and comment quantity from my article entries as will as other competitors.
That’s why I decided to contact you on twitter and I am glad that you’ve fixed the problem and all my comments are back.
Thank you very much for the effort. We are not perfect at all…
- Felix
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