Minor Forum Issues

[mooniac58]

Hello all,

Recently we ran into an issue where we exceeded the max allowable storage on our current hosting plan.  Because of this users were not able to upload anything (images, files, etc) and some functions of the site were not working (anything that required a write operation to the disks).  In order to get us back online I had to delete all user uploaded content between 2012 and 2017.  This could mean that you see:

1) older posts with broken uploaded images

2) older download files not working

3) user avatars and backgrounds might be broken if they were added before 2018

If you avatar image is broken, you will need to upload a new one as well as your profile background.

As far as I can tell, the image galleries are stored in a separate directory from other user uploaded content so it seems that all the gallery images are still preserved.  Unfortunately forum post uploads, user avatars and backgrounds are all stored in the same folders grouped by year and month so those had to be deleted together.

I am looking into upgrading the hosting plan to one that will give us about twice the storage capacity and better performance.  The downside is that it will cost about three times what I pay now because it will be a dedicated server instead of a shared hosting type plan.  In the near future the $10 minimum donation for Supporter access that we have now might might need to increase to $15 or $20.  It has been $10 for more that 10 years now and the costs of things are considerably more than they were in 2010.

I am very sorry for the issues the server freeze caused.  The hosting company gave no warning and changed their policy overnight from "soft limits" on storage to "hard limits" that would shut off file writing when exceeded.

Please let me know if you notice anything else odd on the site besides the items I listed above.

Thank you,

Craig

[Fly Boomer]

38 minutes ago, mooniac58 said:

delete all user uploaded content between 2012 and 2017

All that data is gone forever?  No backups that could be reloaded if or when we are able to add disk?

[mooniac58]

10 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

All that data is gone forever?  No backups that could be reloaded if or when we are able to add disk?

It is gone.  I had no way to backup 125GB of data and the hosting company was not bending on freeing up the server until I got under 100GB.

Note that it was not "all data" only image attachments and file uploads (no text data was deleted).  So all forum posts are still here all the way back to 2008.  However if you attached an image to a post back then it would be gone.  

Note that it is pretty common for forums to purge out old attachments like files and photos attached to posts because they start adding up to a lot of storage space over the years.  For comparison we have 4GB of database storage right now - which is all the forum topics and posts (text content) from 2008 to 2022.  The image attachments over that same period were about 110GB.

We still have all file attachments on posts from 2018-2022 and some of 2017.  Honestly it is not very often anyone is trying to view a picture someone posted 6+ years ago.

[Fly Boomer]

5 minutes ago, mooniac58 said:

had no way to backup 125GB

Not sure what the plumbing would be for that, but I have a pair of 5TB USB drives that I use to backup my stuff.  These days 125GB doesn't sound like much.  That said, if I had to move that amount of data over the Internet, I'd be dead before it was done.

[mooniac58]

5 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

Not sure what the plumbing would be for that, but I have a pair of 5TB USB drives that I use to backup my stuff.  These days 125GB doesn't sound like much.  That said, if I had to move that amount of data over the Internet, I'd be dead before it was done.

That is the real issue, I would have had to transfer 125GB over FTP on my home internet connection (twice) which would have meant our site would have stayed down for a few days.  Just to compress the site into a single ZIP file before the transfer takes like 6 hours.

I felt it was better to get the site working right away and say goodbye to 5+ year old image attachments.  Honestly I was more bummed that people were going to have to re-upload their avatars than I was that old posts would not have files attached anymore.

[Fly Boomer]

@mooniac58 at the end of the day, we are grateful for all you do.

[201er]

6 hours ago, mooniac58 said:

Honestly I was more bummed that people were going to have to re-upload their avatars than I was that old posts would not have files attached anymore.

Not to worry, I got my Mooney repainted so my avatar got an update since a decade ago. Now who I’m worried about is @carusoam, he hasn’t updated his plane or pic in more years than he can probably recall.

[carusoam]

Those little people in my avatar have graduated from college…. 
 

They are much taller now…

That pic was Day 1, for the O coming to NJ…

Looks like the pic is so old it wasn’t affected by today’s issue… 

Best regards,

-a-

[201er]

13 minutes ago, carusoam said:

Looks like the pic is so old it wasn’t affected by today’s issue… 

Good thing they didn’t purge Anthony’s avatar or Mooneyspace might cease functioning entirely!

[Shadrach]

FYI I was unable to upload images today. I got a message that my upload folder was at 1100% of capacity

[mooniac58]

I had to set limits on everyone's account for all of your combined attachments.  Basic members have 75MB of storage and Supporter members have 250MB of storage.  Our hosting account only allows 75GB of storage and we had lots of users uploading 500MB videos and 100MB JPGs, etc.

You can manage your attachments at https://mooneyspace.com/attachments/ (or by clicking your username and selecting My Attachments).  Here you can delete your older attachments, etc.

[201er]

11 minutes ago, mooniac58 said:

I had to set limits on everyone's account for all of your combined attachments.  Basic members have 75MB of storage and Supporter members have 250MB of storage.  Our hosting account only allows 75GB of storage and we had lots of users uploading 500MB videos and 100MB JPGs, etc.

You can manage your attachments at https://mooneyspace.com/attachments/ (or by clicking your username and selecting My Attachments).  Here you can delete your older attachments, etc.

So with a decade of photos/diagrams posted amounting to a mere 350mb, the choices I have are:

1) Delete 90% of all my attachments to have 50% capacity remaining, enough to post a few dozen pics at most

2) Pay to become a supporter and still have to delete a third of my stuff with no capacity left

3) Stop posting, but get to leave my old content without having to delete it (although half was already forcefully purged)

 

What year are we living in? Is 2022 inflation really so bad that we can't post more than a few dozen photos?

[Greg Ellis]

15 minutes ago, 201er said:

So with a decade of photos/diagrams posted amounting to a mere 350mb, the choices I have are:

1) Delete 90% of all my attachments to have 50% capacity remaining, enough to post a few dozen pics at most

2) Pay to become a supporter and still have to delete a third of my stuff with no capacity left

3) Stop posting, but get to leave my old content without having to delete it (although half was already forcefully purged)

 

What year are we living in? Is 2022 inflation really so bad that we can't post more than a few dozen photos?

I've only used 84MB of the 244MB I am allotted.  I'll sell you some of my storage, cheap....

[StevenL757]

On 5/3/2022 at 12:36 PM, mooniac58 said:

Hello all,

I am looking into upgrading the hosting plan to one that will give us about twice the storage capacity and better performance.  The downside is that it will cost about three times what I pay now because it will be a dedicated server instead of a shared hosting type plan.  In the near future the $10 minimum donation for Supporter access that we have now might might need to increase to $15 or $20.  It has been $10 for more that 10 years now and the costs of things are considerably more than they were in 2010.

Thank you,

Craig

Personally, I see no issue with an increase.  Storage in any enterprise has historically been a necessary evil, and if is the first we're seeing of a price increase over the last 10 years, then it seems those of us who contribute have been very lucky, fortunate, or both.

Ongoing thanks to Craig @mooniac58 for the work in maintaining the site, and allowing us to be a part of it.

Steve

[Marauder]

How are photos handled through Tapatalk? I was told they are hosting the photos. And we all know some of my photos have big, real big.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[LANCECASPER]

Just now, Marauder said:

How are photos handled through Tapatalk? I was told they are hosting the photos. And we all know some of my photos have big, real big.
 

Just eliminating those pictures would have taken care of any storage problem. 

Losing Maurader's pictures has taken a huge weight off of all of us on here.

[Marauder]

Just eliminating those pictures would have taken care of any storage problem. 
Losing Maurader's pictures has taken a huge weight off of all of us on here.

We all know diets are good for you!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Fly Boomer]

4 hours ago, StevenL757 said:

Personally, I see no issue with an increase.  Storage in any enterprise has historically been a necessary evil, and if is the first we're seeing of a price increase over the last 10 years, then it seems those of us who contribute have been very lucky, fortunate, or both.

Ongoing thanks to Craig @mooniac58 for the work in maintaining the site, and allowing us to be a part of it.

I also have no issue with a price increase.  It simply would not be possible to get answers (with attendant documentation) to many of our questions without this forum.  @mooniac58 what would be the cost per subscriber if only supporters were able to see, upload, or download pictures and other documents?

[Shadrach]

7 hours ago, mooniac58 said:

I had to set limits on everyone's account for all of your combined attachments.  Basic members have 75MB of storage and Supporter members have 250MB of storage.  Our hosting account only allows 75GB of storage and we had lots of users uploading 500MB videos and 100MB JPGs, etc.

You can manage your attachments at https://mooneyspace.com/attachments/ (or by clicking your username and selecting My Attachments).  Here you can delete your older attachments, etc.

I find this dismaying. I appreciate everything you do Craig. I don’t mind adds, I’ve also been a supporter. As much As I enjoy the community aspect of the forum. Its true utility is as a repository of technical information with regards to flying and maintaining Mooneys. If that collection of information has to be constantly purged, it kind of defeats the purpose.  Video uploads should be forbidden as the are easily hosted elsewhere. 80% of my uploads are technical in nature. A great deal of them were purged with the 2012-2017 deletion.  I’m currently at 212mb so, I’ll likely be maxed in 18 months. If the content is not sustainable, then the can is just being kicked down the road.

[mooniac58]

When it comes to photos people need to learn how to reduce the size of these using photo editing software.  A JPG image can look really good with high resolution at 1MB. 

Attached is a 830KB JPG image at 2000x1335 resolution.  If you just upload raw images off your phone or camera they are going to be huge.  With new phone camera technology they are getting insanely huge - like 100MB (100x the size of the photo I attached here).  Most phones have options built in to reduce file size.

A basic member could have 100+ images like this on their account and a Supporter could have 300+.

When it comes to videos, just don't upload them here.  We are not YouTube and we don't have that kind of storage capabilities.  You can upload your videos to YouTube or other video sites and embed them into your post here.

[rbp]

2 hours ago, mooniac58 said:

people need to learn how to reduce the size of these

there must be a plug-in for this system that downscales the images? 

[rbp]

2 hours ago, mooniac58 said:

people need to learn how to reduce the size of these

there must be a plug-in for this system that downscales the images? 

[rbp]

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/466984-automatically-resize-optimize-images/#comment-2890159

[BobbyH]

On 5/3/2022 at 10:40 AM, Fly Boomer said:

@mooniac58 at the end of the day, we are grateful for all you do.

It has been shown that for every positive reaction you receive there are close to 50 others who thought about it but didn't follow through.  You had to make some hard decisions and you did so in a time sensitive way, our appreciation is mostly unspoken but greatly felt. 

Thank you!

Bob

[vorlon1]

Well this is a REAL Bummer. As a former DBA of a Fortune 25 company, that should NEVER happen... Did you get a notice of the upcoming limitation?

If not, someone needs to be punished!!

Perhaps I or someone else could have helped save the data. I have a 200Mb/sec connection and like others have said, storage is cheap. Would have been happy to to store it as long as necessary to allow for its recovery. Perhaps a pause would have been in order.

However, that appears to be "water over the bridge" now, so let's make sure it doesn't happen again.

Please don't get me wrong, I THANK YOU for all your hard work. 

Thanks for listening.