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Tech: Mudcat Troubles (from Max)
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: JudyB Date: 28 Jun 05 - 04:57 PM Thanks, Joe & Guest - I did find Kat's post by using search, after I got done chuckling over the ducks - and it does seem a useful post to bring to the top. JudyB |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: GUEST Date: 28 Jun 05 - 04:34 PM FAQs for Mudcat Auction: (Kat is completely responsible for this content and any errors it may contain!**bg**) How do I add an item to the auction? Click on the Auction link in the menu bar at the top of the page. Then, click on the Add Item to Auction link and follow the instructions. How long should my auction last? A good rule of thumb is do what the experts do: most successful online auction places allow a 7 or 10 day auction. You may choose a longer time period, but it's important to keep peoples' interest up. How much do I have to pay Mudcat? The choice is yours. When you add your item, you can choose to share from 10% to 100% of the proceeds with the Mudcat. Who pays for shipping? You should be clear in your initial auction posting as to what arrangements are acceptable for shipping and handling. Let folks know if they will have to pay extra for shipping or if it is included in the final bid. Also, be sure to spell out if the shipping comes out of the profit before Mudcat gets its cut. How do I add a picture to my listing? Be sure you have your picture saved on your computer in the jpeg format. And, remember where you saved it. After you have named your item, chosen the percentage paid to Mudcat after your item has sold, and chosen a closing date for your auction to end, click on Take Me To Describe It. Click on "Browse" just to the right of "Image File." This will lead you to your computer files. Be sure to choose the right drive, then find your image file. Once you've clicked on it, click on "open" and that will take you back to your auction listing page, with the picture copied onto Mudcat. You will not see the actual picture until you finish your listing. Do I have to bid on my own item in order to list it? Yes, in your initial listing. The amount you enter in the "Opening Bid" box sets the minimum amount you will accept for your item. A good rule of thumb says "start low" as it tends to encourage bidding. Folks enjoy bidding up; if you start too high, it's just not as much fun! Where do I tell folks about my item? You may post as much information as you'd like in the posting box provided under "Create Initial Message for Thread." How can I find out if folks have questions about my item? Just open your auction thread, anytime, to see who has posted a question and/or entered a bid. What happens at the end of my auction? The buyer and seller should contact one another, by PM or email. They should make arrangements for the buyer to send payment directly to the seller or Mudcat, or both, depending on the split of proceeds. How do I pay for an auction item I've won? Contact the seller for their mailing address and details of payment percentages, etc. You may pay the Mudcat percentage of the proceeds through the PayPal link on this page or, go directly to PayPal and pay to max@mudcat.org. You may also send your payment to: The Mudcat Café PO Box 3006 West Chester, PA 19381 (610) 738 9050 I need help with the auction; whom should I contact? Post a "help thread" in the Help section of the Mudcat. Someone will answer your question. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: GUEST Date: 28 Jun 05 - 04:33 PM Or was this it? http://207.103.108.99/thread.cfm?threadid=71775&messages=7#1260426 |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Joe Offer Date: 28 Jun 05 - 04:23 PM SuperSearch seems to be working fairly well to identify the thread where information is located, but not for individual messages. I'd say the best thing to do is follow the thread links. When you get to the thread, use [CTRL-F] to find results on the page. We could update the search index, but it would be better if we can salvage links by restoring original message numbers that were disturbed in the crash. So, some things are on hold until Max and Jeff decide the best way to restore things. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 28 Jun 05 - 04:07 PM Could Geoff the Duck have been responsible for that? I have given up on Forum message results. The thread references seem to be OK, but many of the message links lead to peculiar results. The entire thread(s) must be perused. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: JudyB Date: 28 Jun 05 - 03:35 PM I was wondering if auctions always end at midnight, so I went to the FAQ page and found a link to Auction FAQ - which took me to a thread about ducks quacking in different dialects. It's possible that the thread I found really does explain how the auction works - but it's a bit tricky to understand. Thanks! JudyB
-Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: GUEST,JennyO Date: 19 Jun 05 - 12:10 AM Bugger! One of my posts got lost in the ether. Mudcat is up, down, all over the place today. I was saying that some threads seem to be more muddled than others. When I was reading Naemanson's Spring in Guam thread, Charley Noble mentioned that maybe Brett should back up his thread so as not to lose it. It prompted me to go and check how badly muddled it was, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that with the exception of a handful of April 2005 posts lurking amongst some 2004 posts, and a couple of other odd ones out of place, it was mainly intact and in the right order. Many other threads are far more mixed up than that. I don't know why this should be. I have been looking for some kind of pattern to the muddled posts, but there doesn't seem to be one. It seems to be random. Good luck Max and co. Looks like we've some way to go yet, but I'm sure you're doing your best to fix the bugs. Jenny |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 18 Jun 05 - 11:23 PM That's true - but sooner or later someone else will discover the same facts about lost and misorderd posts - and if they have seen them already, they won't panic. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: wysiwyg Date: 18 Jun 05 - 09:34 PM There are a bunch of really, really smart people who know much better than the rest of us, what is wrong, how it went wrong, and workable options in making it as "fixed" as possible. I'm just taking a laid-back attitude that until they tell us how we can help, as far as reconstructing any old threads, etc., it's best left alone for them to just cogitate a bit on it. They'll tell us what we can do when they know what it is. Till then, it seems to me, it's best to keep in mind that no one is known ever to have died of a lost Mudcat post. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 18 Jun 05 - 08:14 PM Some messages seem to have disappeared entrely from some threads. BS: The Wisdom Inherent in Spam Messages |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: JedMarum Date: 18 Jun 05 - 02:39 PM Thanks Max of fixin' us up. We appreciate your hard work. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: GUEST,Jon Date: 18 Jun 05 - 02:16 PM I meant record in messages above. One other thought from me. how many posts are there? !!!
-Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: GUEST,Jon Date: 18 Jun 05 - 02:04 PM Jim, I'm no expert either. I had understood what you were saying and looking for and had a feeling you could be right. Looking again at the supersearch index, I see it does give the date/time of the post, the thread_ID and what we think is the correct message_ID. It might be possible to match that up with the date/time and thread_ID in the threads title although I'm not sure what you do if 2 date times are equal but I don't think that is unresolvable. It doesn't sound impossible. For Each record in threads Select matching records in index by date/time and thread_ID Assign thread record the message_ID Next record. It needs a bit of refinement but what do you think in principle? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Jim Dixon Date: 18 Jun 05 - 12:45 PM Jon: I didn't mean to give the impression of any expertise I don't actually have. My experience in programming was long ago. (It was mostly in COBOL, in fact.) It gave me some appreciation of the complexities of programming, but I am far from being able to fix the current problem. I only meant to point out that some information seems to exist in the index about how the messages were originally numbered. How to extract that information and use it, is totally beyond my experience. There might not be a practical way—or any way—to do it. I was hoping someone else could figure something out. Meanwhile, here are some more observations that I hope will be useful to someone: Even some very old messages appear out of sequence, and seem to have been renumbered. It isn't just the messages since December, 2004. See this thread for instance: Lyr Req: You're a Rascal, Tarry Flynn. There are 20 messages. Only the last message is recent; all the other postings are from 1999. If you number the messages according to their age, they appear in this order: 19, 2, 1, 12, 13, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 18, 15, 17, 16, 20. That means the oldest message appears in position 3, the second oldest in position 2, the third oldest in position 6, etc. In other words, they are quite scrambled. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: GUEST,Jon Date: 17 Jun 05 - 06:50 PM John, I'll try to clarify some of what you said. First let me explain the type of structure in use. To keep it simple I will forget members and use the old Coldfusion tutorial and a database I created based on that. The tables are called Threads and Messages. The field lists for each are: Threads: Thread_ID, Name Messages: Message_ID, Thread_ID, Posted, Subject, Username, Body. The fields Thread_ID in threads and Message_ID in messages are the primary keys (or main indexes if you like) and are of autoincrement (or similar) type. Each time a post is added or a thread is added the next number in the relavant sequence is allocated. Most of the rest is based on how it looks to me from here and involves several "best guesses". When the database came back up for the first time, I think it was restored from a Dec 2004 backup so for additions, the sequences would have started from then but I think those new posts/new threads got deleted. My best guess is that what happened on the second restore was that the working copy from the failed disk was "uncorrupted" as best as possible. Thread_ID in messages is the foreign key or the link that joins messages to threads. The data in this field looks to be OK but it does appear that the Message_ID sequence got changed at some point, I think in the "uncorrupting". As date/time stamp (Posted) also looks OK, there is a simple fix that as far as I can make out would have nearly all posts appearing in the correct order in threads. Changing the ORDER BY clause to say "Posted" instead of "Message_ID" (or something along those lines) in thread.cfm should work. The advantage of using Message_ID was that a sequence of posts would remain correct even if the PC clock went out. There should also be enough info to generate a new Message_ID sequence that would order correctly in threads but the difficult one is to re-create the old Message_ID numbers so that links/references to messages either by bookmark in a thread or by detail.cfm work. I haven't a clue how that could be achieved. Maybe Jim Dixon has an idea with the supersearch index but I can't see how to do it. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Bill D Date: 17 Jun 05 - 05:03 PM serendipity |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: GUEST Date: 17 Jun 05 - 09:01 AM All I know is that my computer doesn't crash anymore now that I got rid of my mudcat cookie. What's that about? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Jim Dixon Date: 17 Jun 05 - 08:20 AM More news: The SuperSearch is working, sort of. However, it has some problems. When you see a result like this:
If you click on "Thread", it will take you to the right thread, but it will take you to the top of the thread instead of to the exact message you wanted. In other words, the message number that's embedded in the link is wrong. Or maybe the message number that's embedded in the link is right according to the old numbering scheme, but wrong according to the new one. This sounds hopeful. If the index contains a record of what the old numbering scheme was, then maybe it can be reconstructed. (Although it boggles the mind to think of how it might be reconstructed. I'm glad I'm not a programmer any more.) MAX: DON'T THROW AWAY THE INDEX! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Jim Dixon Date: 17 Jun 05 - 07:48 AM Whoa! I hadn't thought of that consequence. If you change a message number, then any link that's supposed to go to that message won't work. However, it appears thread numbers haven't changed, so links that go to threads are OK. To spell it out: 1. Links in the format href=/detail.cfm?messages__message_id=000000 will go God-knows-where. 2. Links in the format href=/thread.cfm?threadid=00000#00000 will at least get you to the right thread. If the message you wanted has been renumbered, the link will take you to the top of the thread (which isn't so bad). 3. Links in the format href=/thread.cfm?threadid=00000 are just fine. 4. Links to the DT href=/@displaysong.cfm?songid=0000 are OK too. I'm really glad most of the links I've created are in format 2 or 3, not 1. Joe: Is Max aware of this problem? Can it be fixed? Does anybody know: have all messages been renumbered? Or just all messages since December? Or is there some other pattern? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Joe Offer Date: 17 Jun 05 - 05:32 AM As Jim Dixon said, the message numbers got changed. the Happy Index isn't very happy about it. All the links lead to the wrong places. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Pauline L Date: 17 Jun 05 - 01:42 AM Max, I didn't know that you had surgery recently. Take good care of yourself. That should be #1 priority. We'll still love you. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Jim Dixon Date: 16 Jun 05 - 11:59 PM Oh, heck. It's happening all over the place threadid=5717 threadid=9434 threadid=11594 threadid=41765 threadid=60602 threadid=81984 |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: JennyO Date: 16 Jun 05 - 11:16 PM I haven't noticed any posts in the wrong threads. What I have noticed though is that the order of posts is mixed up within a thread - at least the posts made before the crash. For instance, the "For Real. I quit" MG thread now starts with a post I made on the 11th June, followed by what were actually the first few posts on the 10th June, then there are a few from a different time, then one completely out of place by itself, etc etc. I'm hoping that this will sort itself eventually when Max fixes the bugs he is still working on. I don't particularly want to appear to be the initiator of that infamous thread. And no, I am not Martin Gibson - at least I don't think I am :-) But who can tell in these confusing times? AAAAAAARGGGHH! - I think I'll go and lie down for a while..... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: JohnInKansas Date: 16 Jun 05 - 06:38 PM Each post is given a "record number" when submitted. While the database was down, the system had no way of knowing what record numbers were already used. In at least one case of a thread started during the db downtime, the older thread that already "owned" the record number is the one that came up when I "went to" the new one. In any case where a db gets "corrupted" the list of which records (posts) belong in which "thread" has to come from data in the database, so it's not too surprising if there are some confused linkups - especially where new data may have been assigned the same recordno as an existing post.(?) I'm guessing a bit, but each "post" should have a separate number, and there may be some that remain in the database that have lost their links to which "thread" they should be listed with - or in what order. In principle, someone could maybe search for the "lost records" and reassemble them by hand, I suppose. The 4 GB in the database would all fit on a data DVD, so maybe Max could burn one and let some volunteer give it a shot... or not! Any takers? Many db systems include a "compact" utility - of the sort that your email db uses. When a db record is "deleted," the record usually stays in the db file, and only its link from the "record list" is deleted. Commpacting your email is how you DELETE all the "unlinked records" from the database file. SOME databases may include "recovery" or search utilities that let you save the orphans to a separate place???? If the unlinked records include the thread name and a date/time, a volunteer might sort out where they go so that an "errata thread" could post them back?????? All kinds of possiblilities - but what's practical? Probably just what we're doing - talk about it 'til Max and the clones get as much of it fixed as they can. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Jim Dixon Date: 16 Jun 05 - 01:09 AM Yup, just as I feared. Thread#1319 has a similar problem. The oldest message in the thread—if one can believe the dates and times that are attached to these messages—is the one by Bo Vandenberg, #5 from the top. Oddly enough, messages 5 and 6 are about THE LAMBTON WORM while the first 4 messages are about an unrelated song called PUT YOUR SHOES ON, LUCY. Yet someone noticed the oddity of this and commented on it on 06-April-2004. So the problem may be older than the latest problem. Or is it? This is terribly confusing. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Justa Picker Date: 15 Jun 05 - 11:06 PM Max, hows your health? Your arm, the healing etc....coming along? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Jim Dixon Date: 15 Jun 05 - 10:58 PM Something very peculiar has happened to thread#41573. The messages do not appear in chronological order. If you look at the date and time each message was posted you see that the 7th message from the top is actually the oldest. That's the one where GUEST,Dallas made the original request for lyrics. Some of the answers to that request appear ahead of the question! Yet, if you look at the message numbers, they are in ascending order (as they should be). It looks as if some messages have been assigned new numbers, incorrectly. If this has happened to one thread, it has probably happened to others, too. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I'm really very grateful that Mudcat has reappeared. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Tattie Bogle Date: 15 Jun 05 - 07:37 PM I just thought you were too busy to let little me in! haven't checked my personals yet though! TB |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: SINSULL Date: 15 Jun 05 - 07:32 PM I am back to work, Max, and can Paypal some money. Meantime, given the time you lost for your accident, work and then rest. This crowd needed a breather anyway. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: vectis Date: 15 Jun 05 - 06:25 PM Thanks Max. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Bev and Jerry Date: 15 Jun 05 - 04:58 PM Max: Thanks for all your effort but allow us to correct you on one small point. This is your real job. The other one only provides money. Bev and Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Pauline L Date: 15 Jun 05 - 12:06 PM Thanks so much, Max. We all love you. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: JudyB Date: 15 Jun 05 - 11:35 AM Max - Thanks for the update - and for all the work you put in last night and all the other nights. Donation on its way via PayPal. All this and a day job too - WOW! Thanks again, JudyB |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Noreen Date: 15 Jun 05 - 10:51 AM Hi Max! Since you asked- I retrieved via Google, urls for a couple of members' search pages Bill Sables and Ferret (as I'm looking for the lyrics to "The Ballad of Mini Cooper". However, when I click on the link on the page which should go to the 'Mini Cooper' thread, they both take me to somewhere completely different- i.e. the Message_ID numbers are out of synch. You probably knew this, or it follows from some posts having been lost. Good luck with all the hard work. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Max Date: 15 Jun 05 - 10:43 AM What happened? Well, I woke up yesterday to our primary server saying that there was a disk error and couldn't be written to. So I followed protocol and shut down and scanned the disk. When I got her back up, the database said that the mudcat database was in the spot that was damaged on the disk. So I followed protocol and did what the pros recommend to restore the data. What can you do to help? Send contributions to paypal (max@mudcat.org). We're well short of our monthly expenses. Seems to always fall off in the summer. What can I do? Backup more often, rebuild the RAID array, learn to replicate the database real-time, format another machine to run another DNS server... As usual, everything is harder with the Mudcat because of its high volume of traffic and the fact that we have 4GB of data now. Got PM's working, the other stuff is gonna have to wait… my real job needs me today. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: John Hardly Date: 15 Jun 05 - 10:37 AM If I had $1 for every corrupt cookie I've ever eaten... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome Date: 15 Jun 05 - 10:19 AM Similar to DaveB's but mine says 2 posts and I only have 1! Posted on the help forum before I saw this. DtG |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: GUEST,Suzi Date: 15 Jun 05 - 10:15 AM Thank you from me too Max.... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Flash Company Date: 15 Jun 05 - 09:56 AM I second all the above, now, as Bat Goddess said, is there anything we can do to help? It aint fair to leave everything in the principal that 'Good ole Max will fix it'. I will be the first to admit that I would be useless at sorting technical problems, but I probably know a few men who can. FC |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Rapparee Date: 15 Jun 05 - 08:26 AM Thanks, Max. I know how hard it is to do what you've done. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Stilly River Sage Date: 15 Jun 05 - 07:54 AM When the first message came up this morning "Your Cookie is Corrupt" I knew I was once again looking at the more recent version of the 'Cat. Beggars can't be choosers--I'm happy to take whatever you can cobble together today, Max. Thank you very much! SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: An Englishman Abroad Date: 15 Jun 05 - 07:49 AM Good suggestion Linn |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Bat Goddess Date: 15 Jun 05 - 07:45 AM You're incredible, Max!!! What can we do to help to avert any future crisis? Linn |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Dani Date: 15 Jun 05 - 06:46 AM Hmmm. I can access my PMs, and the number posted on the front page is the same as a few days ago, but the actual messages listed are 3 less, and the most recent three are gone.... Dani |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: freda underhill Date: 15 Jun 05 - 06:33 AM Thanks very much Max! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Dave Bryant Date: 15 Jun 05 - 06:25 AM I've got a PM flagged, but when I go into my personal page it says "No Messages". I hope Mudcat's OK over the weekend as I was planning to post as a roving reporter from the Knockholt Mini Folk Festival (and sheep shagging) weekend. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: MBSLynne Date: 15 Jun 05 - 05:23 AM Thanks Max. Still posts missing on some threads.... Love Lynne |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Wolfgang Date: 15 Jun 05 - 05:18 AM In many threads, the order of posts is not chronological any more. Wolfgang |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: Kaleea Date: 15 Jun 05 - 04:39 AM Been real interesting trying to keep the Ol' Cat online for us, huh? Thanks for being there for us. I'm a definite Cat addict too, I guess. Haven't been able to get here for a couple of days. Earlier this evening, whenever I clicked on a thread, I went to the google front page--interesting, huh? Or dare I quote a famous alien & say, "Fascinating!"? Uh, oh, now you-know-who will be telling us that on the ole NCC-1701 the computer never goes down. oh yeah, right. Only every few episodes! Even in the 24th, 25th & 26th centuries they have 'puter tribbles--OOPS I mean, troubles, too. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Mudcat Troubles From: pixieofdoom Date: 15 Jun 05 - 04:28 AM Thanks Max, glad to see the cat back again! |
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