Nick's Hotaru CMS Blog

JapanSoc Down, Hotaru Standing By

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7 Comments

Nick

on 01-25-2010 at 02:26 PM (781 Views)

Yep, it's true...

JapanSoc was plagued by spam. You never saw it, but I got it in my email box and manually deleted it everyday for the last two years and three months. As a result, the database had grown to ugly proportions, filled with the remnants of deleted users, stories, votes, comments, tags, and more. In fact, it was too big for phpMyAdmin’s export feature, so I decided to run a database cleanup module I made ages ago. That module worked, and I was able to backup the database after all the spam had been wiped. Unfortunately, I then realized I couldn’t log in, and I got an email from one of our top users whose account had been deleted! I guess my module was overly keen.

I’m taking this as a signal to scrap everything and start again. Start again fresh with a new CMS, one which I’ve been developing myself, a clean database, and a spam free inbox to wake up to every morning.

To those of you who have given so much to JapanSoc over the last couple of years, I’m really sorry that all your content will be wiped. I could try moving it to the new system, but there are a lot of complications migrating from JapanSoc to Hotaru CMS, specifically with how user accounts are mapped with RPX, the provider that lets you sign in with Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. I’m not a big business with a tech support department. I’m just a guy at home in the mountains of Gifu, playing with the internet.

Some of you might be reluctant to sign-up again on the new JapanSoc in case I wipe everything again, and that is totally understandable. I hope, however, that you re-join us anyway!

http://blog.japansoc.com/2010/01/25/...-from-scratch/

So it looks like Hotaru will take to the stage earlier than expected. This can only be a good thing as it will get some serious testing on JapanSoc.com. Wish me luck!

Tags: japansoc, live

Categories: General

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Comments

runnertalk - 01-25-2010 02:59 PM

Sorry to hear you have to start all over But good luck with Hotaru! Are you going to use v.1.0.4 or do some more testing and debugging first?
Nick - 01-25-2010 03:28 PM

I'll put 1.0.4 up there and use the Announcement feature to say something like "JapanSoc is running on a new system, please help us by reporting bugs here (linked)". I'll also blog about the "work-in-progress" nature of the site. Gotta get people involved in helping the site, rather than have them wonder why the theme is crap, features are missing and stuff doesn't work.

Two things I have to do first though: 1. Remove all the users from my existing RPX account because their IDs won't match anymore, and 2. Test Japanese characters in post titles and urls - a real problem for Pligg, SWCMS, and probably Hotaru, too.
baadier - 01-26-2010 03:04 AM

its risky business putting it in a live enviroment but its one way too find bugs, ive been playing around with my live install all day and enjoying. Its been a breeze too work with and without mentioning other projects, i find myself in a better position after 1 night of work than i was after 2 weeks struggling through smarties. Respect to you and the other guys for a job well done and keep it up
Nick - 01-26-2010 11:44 AM

I managed to a get hold of a backup from the previous day, and have used the Pligg Importer to import it all into Hotaru. For the record, the reason it screwed up in the first place was the DB Cleanup module I made for SWCMS deleted users who hadn't validated their email address. I had forgotten that I disabled email verification a few months ago because it was causing problems with my implementation of RPX on SWCMS. So hundreds of users who had signed up in the last few months all got deleted!

It will take some time to set things up, but JapanSoc will be live again later in the week, on Hotaru, with all its data from SWCMS... I hope!

The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can start fixing some recently discovered bugs.
JonH - 01-27-2010 01:34 AM

Wow that really sucks.. or does it? It looks like Japan Soc has some great members over there they'll be glad to help find any bugs to get Japan Soc back up and even better than before and knowing you Nick you're up for the challenge! The amount of bugs found on any system is directly related to the user base size.
baadier - 01-27-2010 01:59 AM

That's definetely true, and your sites been up for a while so it has an established community that I'm sure would we willing to help
nothingman - 01-27-2010 08:29 AM

Hi Nick, sorry about your 'loss' I'm sure your hosting company would have some backup plan with them. I encountered the same problem (someone deleting the entire links table in swcms) I'm on a shared deluxe hosting with godaddy and they were able to restore the entire database 24hrs from the time I encountered this 'same' problem. No, I don't work for godaddy, just wanted to help.

From godaddy: We backup hosting accounts and databases only a daily basis and keep the backups for 30 days. Should you ever need us to restore either, there would be a $150 restore fee.