Back from the Dead!

You can find important news and current events here.
seraph0x
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 2654
Joined: Sun Jul 23, 2006 8:58 am

Back from the Dead!

Post by seraph0x »

Whew, what a week!

I really have been neglecting Milovana quite a bit. :-/

Have you ever had a mission in life? Something you just knew you had to do? Suddenly, it's hard to think about anything else.

Unfortunately, Milovana fell into the "anything else" category for the last couple of years. Nothing to do with the site, I still love you all, I just felt that I was needed elsewhere.

That was until Milovana delivered a rude wake-up call in her own way.

The site was originally set up very nicely - rotating backups were generated every couple of hours and the server ran on multiple-redundant hard drives.

Nothing lasts forever, though. Over the years, the redundant hard drives failed, one by one. The backup mechanism died with an old server that turned itself off last year.

Until finally, Milovana's last hard drive ran into a write error and halted the database server. I noticed the site was down, but was on a deadline at work, so I restarted the server, not really looking into the problem.

A few days later the site was down again and when that happens, it's pretty clear that it isn't just a turn-it-off-and-on-again type of problem.

So I investigated, and found out about the dead drives, the lack of backups and the fact that the last drive was on its last leg as well.

That got my attention. Milovana is very dear to me and the fact that I let it get so close to death shocked me to my core. I was determined to resurrect it.

Assessing the damage, there was a lot of good news: The images are safely stored in the cloud and there was zero damage on that front. All other files were intact as well. But when copying the database, I got some very bad news. The database file was unreadable. Any attempt to copy it resulted in an error.

I was eventually able to recover most of it, using an awesome open-source called ddrescue. This tool is able to read a file block-by-block, sector-by-sector in a way to minimize further damage to the drive. This way, I was able to retrieve all but 615KB of the 4GB database file:

GNU ddrescue 1.22
Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
Initial status (read from mapfile)
rescued: 4497 MB, tried: 615424 B, bad-sector: 615424 B, bad areas: 134

     ipos:        0 B, non-trimmed:        0 B,  current rate:       0 B/s
     opos:        0 B, non-scraped:        0 B,  average rate:       0 B/s
non-tried:        0 B,  bad-sector:   615424 B,    error rate:       0 B/s
  rescued:    4497 MB,   bad areas:      134,        run time:          0s
pct rescued:   99.98%, read errors:        0,  remaining time:         n/a
                              time since last successful read:         n/a
Finished


99.98% sounds pretty good until you try to boot the database and it still won't start. No database, no way to recover so much as a single tease.

Well, about 16 hours of work later, I had the data back and here we are.

A few changes
  • Upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04, PHP 7 and phpBB 3.2
  • Removed the ads (they hadn't actually been hooked up to make money anyway)
What now?

I'd like to invest some time into the site again. But I need your help to figure out on what. Here are my thoughts:
  • Design a new permanent backup mechanism (we're on a provisional one right now) (non-negotiable)
  • Re-enable registrations (using an invite system to limit spam)
  • Set up a new chat (anyone got suggestions)
  • Finish Mia (HTML5 interactive tease engine)
  • ... what else? Tell me your ideas!
I don't want to overpromise what I can do - my day job hasn't changed since two weeks ago and I'm about to go on a fairly long business trip. However, I think we can knock out the top couple of priorities in the next few weeks. I want to be efficient, so let me know what the most urgent todos are!

Milovana Forever!
User avatar
elvisomar
Explorer At Heart
Explorer At Heart
Posts: 172
Joined: Tue Nov 07, 2006 12:37 am
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: Straight
I am a: Submissive
Dom/me(s): None, but I'd be interested
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by elvisomar »

THANK YOU!

I'll give your general request for feedback some thought, but I had to very strongly offer my thanks.
  • Thank you for the site, and all and any resources you put toward it
  • Thank you putting it back into working order in what seems like a very short amount of time
  • Thank you for clear and thoughtful communication about what happened
  • Thank you for being clear that you want it to continue
  • Thank you for seeking input from the users to help shape the future of the site
I've been a member here pretty much since its inception. It is one of my homes on the interwebs. I migrated over here when it started up after having spent time at web-girlfriend.com, which I presume was partial inspiration for this site (this is so much better).

I'm so pleased Milovana will be around for the foreseeable future. It would be nice to open up for new registrations again. The community would certainly benefit from new growth.
User avatar
dubble
Experimentor
Experimentor
Posts: 2520
Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:19 am
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: Straight
I am a: Submissive
Location: Here
Contact:

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by dubble »

WOW! Excellent! *panic & despair start to subside*
Current SitRep: Chilling. Life is good.

Varium et mutabile semper femina
User avatar
puckhog
Explorer
Explorer
Posts: 60
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2016 8:40 pm
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: Straight
I am a: Submissive
Dom/me(s): The lovely Youella takes care of my happy locked cock :D
Location: Canada

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by puckhog »

super work.. would be very happy to see registration for new users up again :)
User avatar
jens
Curious Newbie
Curious Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2014 9:30 am
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual/Bi-Curious
I am a: Submissive

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by jens »

welcome back
User avatar
zoltan
Explorer At Heart
Explorer At Heart
Posts: 243
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2015 8:53 pm
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: Straight
I am a: None of the above

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by zoltan »

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your hard work getting Milovana back.

DOUBLE THANK YOU for addressing the registration issue.

I honestly thought Milovana was dead for good, or at best was doomed to dwindle without new registrations.

I haven't been this excited about the site since I first joined over a year ago.
Image

Want to join Milovana? PM zoltan901 on Reddit to ask for an invite code!
User avatar
Senbonzakura
Explorer
Explorer
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2015 7:44 am
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: Straight
I am a: Submissive

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by Senbonzakura »

Thanks a bunch for your awesome work! I was scared there for a moment!
HorrorDuke
Curious Newbie
Curious Newbie
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2013 2:24 pm

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by HorrorDuke »

Thank you and welcome back.
User avatar
Sissy Elise
Explorer At Heart
Explorer At Heart
Posts: 307
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2015 1:52 pm
Gender: Femboy
Sexual Orientation: Open to new ideas!
I am a: Submissive
Dom/me(s): Miss Tress

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by Sissy Elise »

Thank you for your hard work seraph0x - its much appreciated :-)

Glad to see Milo back up and running - Seeming its Milovana's 10th birthday this year a little tlc would be a perfect present for her :-P


Edit:
Pages seem to be loading faster :smile:
Chat is down
Index page needs TLC - including broken BBcodes
Last edited by Sissy Elise on Sun Feb 12, 2017 4:56 am, edited 2 times in total.
  
TEASES   VIDEOS   GAMES   ART
💕  Latest Tease:    Rock Paper Scissors - Visual Game
📼  Latest vids:      Sissy Trainer 22     🆕

Image
Sam86
Explorer At Heart
Explorer At Heart
Posts: 612
Joined: Sun Dec 06, 2009 10:42 pm
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Location: Germany

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by Sam86 »

Wow, great work Seraphox!

Thanks for all the effort you put into getting this site up and running again without much losses, so very appreciated!

Really glad to have this back up again :-)
Miss-Kagura
Explorer
Explorer
Posts: 22
Joined: Sat May 30, 2015 3:28 pm
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual/Bi-Curious
I am a: Switch
Location: europe
Contact:

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by Miss-Kagura »

Thank you for all the effort to bring the site back.

I don´t known how much time you are able to spend with milo in the near future, but maybe it would be a good idea to take some changes in the team. I meran we have there some people who didn´t show up for months or even years. Do they really need a team status? Wouldn´t it better to exchange them for a new and motivated team, so that everything goes along better?

I am not necessarily talking about admins (although I think one more active admin wouldn´t hurt, but I get this can be a trust issue too), but about lower positions, like Super mods and mods. I think it would be a great improvement for everyone, if we had more people who could work with the site like that.

Especially the chat suffers from a lack of active mods. Also I know magikk, who is a mod, lost his abilities to use his mod-actions in chat. So maybe you could have a look into that.

Thank you for your time and willingness to listen. :)
How to behave around a domme in chat: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15908
Image
http://miss-kagura.tumblr.com/
User avatar
KittyZateez
Explorer At Heart
Explorer At Heart
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2013 6:26 pm
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual/Bi-Curious
I am a: Domme (Female)

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by KittyZateez »

Great to be back from me too! Looks like the private message "General Error" things have been fixed too, that was getting very frustrating. Thanks to admins for their attention!

Kitty
User avatar
Mistress Jenifer
Mistress of the Heel
Mistress of the Heel
Posts: 492
Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2010 11:49 pm
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual/Bi-Curious
I am a: Mistress
Sub/Slave(s): dream_on

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by Mistress Jenifer »

Miss-Kagura wrote: Sun Feb 12, 2017 4:40 am Thank you for all the effort to bring the site back.

I don´t known how much time you are able to spend with milo in the near future, but maybe it would be a good idea to take some changes in the team. I meran we have there some people who didn´t show up for months or even years. Do they really need a team status? Wouldn´t it better to exchange them for a new and motivated team, so that everything goes along better?

I am not necessarily talking about admins (although I think one more active admin wouldn´t hurt, but I get this can be a trust issue too), but about lower positions, like Super mods and mods. I think it would be a great improvement for everyone, if we had more people who could work with the site like that.

Especially the chat suffers from a lack of active mods. Also I know magikk, who is a mod, lost his abilities to use his mod-actions in chat. So maybe you could have a look into that.

Thank you for your time and willingness to listen. :)
The chat part at least, I think its an issue that might be solved. I'm not fully sure how the chat and its perms are saved, so its possible if it was saved in the same manor as the site's backups... Then thats why people have lost mod powers. Seraph can confirm if I'm right on this or wrong and its something else.

I do second the idea of a newer Team and potentially 1 admin added to the pile. Just for the small stuff (name changes, account removals, account activation, etc) as I don't really expect a newbie to be given the same level as seraph or dark.

@seraph;
Thanks for putting the site back together :P
I may poke you if you jump into chat or just PM you with somethings, have to remember what they were from prior issues

Oh!
Fix chat for non-clients. Its up but the website candy client cannot connect at the time of this post. Not sure if thats a simple reboot (which I can do) or something deeper in that needs to be addressed.
Image
Image
*Credit to LDM for the banners, love his work thought I'd promote it. Clicking on them will bring you to his deviant art account.*
BlaqPeppa
Explorer
Explorer
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 1:47 am
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: Straight
I am a: Switch

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by BlaqPeppa »

Hey, need any developers? :whistle:
Miss-Kagura
Explorer
Explorer
Posts: 22
Joined: Sat May 30, 2015 3:28 pm
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual/Bi-Curious
I am a: Switch
Location: europe
Contact:

Re: Back from the Dead!

Post by Miss-Kagura »

Mistress Jenifer wrote: Sun Feb 12, 2017 4:52 am
Miss-Kagura wrote: Sun Feb 12, 2017 4:40 am Thank you for all the effort to bring the site back.

I don´t known how much time you are able to spend with milo in the near future, but maybe it would be a good idea to take some changes in the team. I meran we have there some people who didn´t show up for months or even years. Do they really need a team status? Wouldn´t it better to exchange them for a new and motivated team, so that everything goes along better?

I am not necessarily talking about admins (although I think one more active admin wouldn´t hurt, but I get this can be a trust issue too), but about lower positions, like Super mods and mods. I think it would be a great improvement for everyone, if we had more people who could work with the site like that.

Especially the chat suffers from a lack of active mods. Also I know magikk, who is a mod, lost his abilities to use his mod-actions in chat. So maybe you could have a look into that.

Thank you for your time and willingness to listen. :)
The chat part at least, I think its an issue that might be solved. I'm not fully sure how the chat and its perms are saved, so its possible if it was saved in the same manor as the site's backups... Then thats why people have lost mod powers. Seraph can confirm if I'm right on this or wrong and its something else.

I do second the idea of a newer Team and potentially 1 admin added to the pile. Just for the small stuff (name changes, account removals, account activation, etc) as I don't really expect a newbie to be given the same level as seraph or dark.

@seraph;
Thanks for putting the site back together :P
I may poke you if you jump into chat or just PM you with somethings, have to remember what they were from prior issues

Oh!
Fix chat for non-clients. Its up but the website candy client cannot connect at the time of this post. Not sure if thats a simple reboot (which I can do) or something deeper in that needs to be addressed.
I would be more than happy with that solution you mentioned.
How to behave around a domme in chat: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15908
Image
http://miss-kagura.tumblr.com/
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 24 guests