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Mudcat: restoring lost threads
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Subject: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Joe Offer Date: 28 Apr 22 - 03:28 PM As far as I can tell, we lost about two weeks of posts during our recent crash and restoration. I have been able to identify and restore two threads that were lost: I found the messages for the threads in the Google cache. I found these threads because somebody remembered the titles of these missing threads. I googled for the thread name, and then went to the cache. I then pasted the messages from the cache into a new thread, one messasge at a time. Anybody have ideas for a more systematic way of finding out what threads are missing, and for restoring them? Anybody know of other threads that are missing? I'm pretty proud of myself for at least being able to restore these two threads, but I need help finding others. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: GUEST Date: 28 Apr 22 - 04:17 PM The waybackmachine has stored snapshots of the frontpage. While they may not have archived the full threads, the titles are visible. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Joe Offer Date: 28 Apr 22 - 04:22 PM Yeah, I'm working off a Forum Menu from 30 March from the Wayback Machine, and then searching Google and posting from their cache. Lost a complete thread on Chester Folk Festival. It's on that March 30 Forum Menu, but not on the Google Cache. Lost complete thread: Maritime Music Online Directory Another: 2022 Obit: Pete Skinner (Fleetwood Folk Festival) Another: Barleycorn to the Tune Fred Jordan Uses? |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: DaveRo Date: 28 Apr 22 - 05:06 PM Using the links in that 30th March archive I see that the Chester FF thread was thread #171134 which was not archived. If I search in google using cache:https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=171134 I see that the thread number was reused on 12th April by Shanty Session, London, UK and that has has since been cached. I know of no way to get at earlier google cached varsions. Perhaps after a restore the thread numbers shouldn't be reused, if that's feasible. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Stilly River Sage Date: 28 Apr 22 - 06:14 PM That would be a good idea - I did some searching myself and this time had less luck finding cached threads than the last gap in the data. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 28 Apr 22 - 06:37 PM amazing what work goes on behind the scenes. a big THANKYOU to all who work behind the scenes. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Felipa Date: 28 Apr 22 - 07:06 PM yes, I noticed you restored some messages to the discussion of Lyr Add: Buain a' Choirce (Reaping Oats, Gaelic) |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Felipa Date: 28 Apr 22 - 07:30 PM and also my message re Nollaig Brolly has been restored with a new date. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: rich-joy Date: 28 Apr 22 - 09:28 PM Yes indeed, THANKS for all those who work so hard "behind the scene"!! FWIW, I posted some links in the thread about Nick Hart's (excellent) music : "English folk music is odd" which are now gone, and also in an old thread originally started by the late John in Brisbane, about "Champagne Charlie" the music hall song, but I don't recall who revived it ....... Cheers, R-J |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: OldPossum Date: 29 Apr 22 - 02:21 PM There are other search engines besides Google. It may be worth your while going to www.yandex.com, then putting "Chester Folk Festival site:mudcat.org" in the search box. When I do that, threadid 171134 is the first result. Click on the three little dots and choose Saved copy to get the cache, it has two messages - better than none. There is also www.bing.com, they also have a cache you can try. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Stanron Date: 29 Apr 22 - 03:20 PM I just tried that with DuckDuckGo and got loads of results. The first had lots of posts |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: DaveRo Date: 30 Apr 22 - 01:37 AM Acording to DDG's Help they don't have a cache. Fishing for posts in various search caches is bound to be a hit-and-miss. A better way, Joe, would be for the system to log posts as they're made in a serial text file, and to email it to you automatically, every day. You keep, say, a month's worth and delete the rest. Such a log might already exist. It could be done externally, by scraping the posts, but that requires the system to be mostly working. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Stilly River Sage Date: 30 Apr 22 - 10:45 AM I think they accumulate over time and the time from the last crash to the most recent few hours off line wasn't sufficient to build up a backlog of cached pages in Google. Assuming Google lost track of a bunch when they were gone and cached nothing over something for the page content? By simply accessing any cached pages it is my guess that we change them. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Joe Offer Date: 30 Apr 22 - 04:20 PM I spent about 6 hours going through the forum menu for March 30 that I found at archive.org. I then used the Filter to search Mudcat for each thread. If the thread had not been posted to since Mudcat was restored, there was a good chance I could find an intact, cached copy of the thread at Google. I then logged out and posted each message as a Guest with the original poster's name. It's tedious, but a fairly good process. But if the thread has been posted to or an new thread with the same name has been started, the Google cache of the missing messages disappears - so it's important to do this process as soon as possible after Mudcat is restored. Does anybody have an idea what's the time period where the messages are missing? -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Felipa Date: 30 Apr 22 - 05:14 PM well, I'm a very frequent poster nowadays, and there is no record of any posts from me between 18 March and 10 April. That also fits with what I read, that messages were missing for the 3 weeks up to 11 April. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Joe Offer Date: 01 May 22 - 03:55 AM There was a song about "Waters of the Don" or "Waters of the Donne" - I can't find it at all. I've done pretty well on restoration, but I'm sure I missed a few. I think it's time to quit this project and go on to another. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: DaveRo Date: 01 May 22 - 04:10 AM The last Google archive before the last crash was on 2nd April, 23:49. The last non-BS thread on that was 171175 (Lyr Req: Nick Dow Song) post #10 02 Apr 22 - 07:42 PM. (There may be later ones, which might be in caches available from other search sites.) Thread 171175 seems to have been lost and the number reused. https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=171175 So I deduce it was started after 17 March (the date SRS said that the system had been been recovered to). A thread started before then should still exist but may have lost posts from the end. Reusing the thread number seems to cause Google to remove cached versions of the original thread. (The mechanism is unclear; after all that thread was cached with a different '&messages=10' URL, but the upshot is that Google decides the cached version is stale and removes it.) To find out how many, and which, posts have been lost you need the post numbers. These are not in the index page, they're in the thread page, and those are often not archived at the same time. After the restore the post numbers will also have been reused, I assume, but that matters less. A few days ago I looked at the latest Google archive and estimated that 200 (BS and non-BS) posts had been added in the previous 24 hours, and that 24 threads had been added in the past 4 days. If you wanted to create a window of opportunity, after a system restore, to search archives and caches, then maybe restore the system read-only for a couple of days. Or restrict posting to BS - which would allow you to explain what's happening. But having a log of posts, as I suggested, would be better. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Jon Freeman Date: 01 May 22 - 04:29 AM " By simply accessing any cached pages it is my guess that we change them." I don't think accessing the cache does anything. I think the problems are: 1. When the database is restored from an earlier backup, the number for the next thread will be as per the backup. This means that numbers for missing threads will get reused. Assuming the "threadid" is some sort of auto-increment column, the database may well provide a means to change where the next number starts so a gap could be left for the missing threads but I'd guess that Joe would not have this facility. 2. When a thread that predates the restore point has lost later posts. If a new post is added, google will see that version as the up to date version when it next comes to cache the page. I don't see a "restore from cache" solution to this. I think... Whatever, I think DaveRo is right that any attempt to restore from archives and caches is going to be a bit hit and miss. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Joe Offer Date: 01 May 22 - 04:52 AM any attempt to restore from archives and caches is going to be a bit hit and miss. I learned that the hard way, but I think I did pretty well anyhow. It was an interesting challenge, and my results were better than I had expected. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Jon Freeman Date: 01 May 22 - 05:26 AM Sure Joe, it would have been quite a task to take on and not the sort of thing I'd have been remotely keen on trying... You've done well! |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: GUEST Date: 01 May 22 - 08:31 AM I thought Max was using "Go Daddy" as his primary platform for several years now. Their servers are backed. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 May 22 - 10:03 AM The servers live at Max's house. No "Go Daddy." |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Jeri Date: 01 May 22 - 10:40 AM Gargoyle, stop it. No. Nobody's going to start believing it, no matter how many times you say it. I understood caches, and where mine were, but Macs do things in other ways, and I don't understand it, but luckily, I don't have to. Good work, Joe. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 01 May 22 - 12:57 PM Domain:mudcat.org Registrar:GoDaddy.com, LLC Registered On:1997-09-12 Expires On:2022-09-11 Updated On:2021-09-12 Status:clientDeleteProhibited clientRenewProhibited clientTransferProhibited clientUpdateProhibited Name Servers:ns75.domaincontrol.com ns76.domaincontrol.com ............ Raw Whois Data Domain Name: MUDCAT.ORG Registry Domain ID: D1161968-LROR Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com Registrar URL: http://www.whois.godaddy.com Updated Date: 2021-09-12T15:54:25Z Creation Date: 1997-09-12T04:00:00Z Registry Expiry Date: 2022-09-11T04:00:00Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC Registrar IANA ID: 146 Registrar Abuse Contact Email: email@godaddy.com Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4806242505 Reseller: Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited Registrant Organization: Mudcat Cafe Registrant State/Province: Pennsylvania Registrant Country: US Name Server: NS75.DOMAINCONTROL.COM Name Server: NS76.DOMAINCONTROL.COM DNSSEC: unsigned URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form https://www.icann.org/wicf/) >>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2022-05-01T12:33:45Z <<< For more information on Whois status codes, please visit https://icann.org/ep Sincerely, Gargoyle Just call on my name and I'll be there - wherever I am - like a bridge over .... |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Reinhard Date: 01 May 22 - 01:06 PM That just shows that the domain mudcat.org is registered at Go Daddy; it doesn't say anything about where the servers are located. Similarly, my domain mainlynorfolk.info is registered at Host Europe but the actual root server is hosted by Netcup. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 01 May 22 - 01:09 PM That's the DNS, Gargoyle, not the host itself: GoDaddy knows where mudcat.org is, and can tell everybody else how to get there, but it doesn't host its contents. HTH. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 May 22 - 05:46 PM I third what Reinhard and MaJoC said - there are numerous companies that handle the registration stuff, that doesn't mean they host it. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: Joe Offer Date: 01 May 22 - 08:05 PM I took over two Websites that were on GoDaddy, so I tried dealing with GoDaddy for a while. GoDaddy charges extra for email and a lot of things that are included in my Network Solutions hosting package, so I moved the Websites over to my hosting package as soon as possible. It was tougher to transfer the domain names over to Network Solutions because GoDaddy made it tough, but I got it done. So, now I have three Websites on my one hosting package, and three domain names registered at Network Solutions. But Mudcat has always been on Max's machines. He likes it that way. If anybody finds any other threads that need restoring, feel free to do the restoration. I'm on to other things. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat: restoring lost threads From: DaveRo Date: 02 May 22 - 06:10 AM Here's how I've been looking for cached pages in Google. I suggest you copy this post if you're invested in collecting lyrics and suchlike, and maybe experiment to find what's works for you. Find the latest mudcat page in archive.org (aka Wayback machine): https://archive.org/ Enter mudcat.org https://web.archive.org/web/*/mudcat.org The circles mean there is an archive for that day. Why are some of the dots on the calendar page different colors? We color the dots, and links, associated with individual web captures, or multiple web captures, for a given day. Blue means the web server result code the crawler got for the related capture was a 2nn (good); Green means the crawlers got a status code 3nn (redirect); Orange means the crawler got a status code 4nn (client error), and Red means the crawler saw a 5nn (server error). Most of the time you will probably want to select the blue dots or links. [FAQ]Green circles are fine, too. Bigger circles means more stuff archived. Find an archived mudcat page that shows the thread you want. Click it: if you're lucky you'll get the achived thread but often you'll get a load if gobbledegook that means it wasn't archived. You can go back and try an earlier archive, or you can look in Google's cache. This is what I do; there are variations on this, using the '3 dots menu' - which depends on your device or computer, but this works for me on this tablet. Copy the thread link - right-click, long-tap... A thread link in archive.org looks like this: https://web.archive.org/web/20220401005550/https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=171134&messages=4
The bit you want is at the end: https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=171134&messages=4 (That's the original Chester FF thread.) cache:https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=171134&messages=4
Hit enter, The result should be one of: |
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