The Great Server Crash of 2022

[Pete]

On 28th October 2022 (exactly a week ago if you're reading this on the day of posting), the hard drive on the V-Flyer server crashed. Spectacularly. After exploring many recovery options, and much head scratching of many techies, the drive was declared very, very dead. Sadly, there wasn't an external backup. It looked like V-Flyer was gone for good.

Then I found a backup from March 2021. It's a year and a half out of date, but at least it allows me to pop the site back on its feet.

So we've lost a year and a half of posts, which is an awful shame. If you created a user account since March 2021, you'll need to re-enrol.

I can only apologise for the lost of posts and user accounts. I've learnt from the nightmare of the last week. V-Flyer now gets a daily backup to a server in a completely different datacentre.

Welcome back

Pete

Thanks, Pete, for all your efforts to get us up and running again. So we've lost a few posts - I'm sure that loss won't deter true v-flyers from making a go of this 'new' forum. Thanks again.

Thanks for getting us back up and running

[mitchja]

Thanks Pete

Thanks for all your hard work Pete. Backup, backup, backup is now surely imprinted in your head as it was mine after a similar issue I had some years ago.

I’m sure if any of my posts were memorable, people will remember them

Great effort.... thank you

Good to see you are back. With a lot of exciting things in the works at Virgin (new aircraft, routes etc) I'm sure the site will soon fill up again

Pete, I have genuinely felt lost without our little VS community, and especially on such a big week - the launch of the 339! I was fearing the worst and that we had seen the end, but I'm so glad you managed to salvage it!! Thank you!

Thank you Pete - you're appreciated

[buns]

Thanks Pete
Was getting the jitters without my V Flyer fix !

Buns

Many thanks Pete. I have really missed the site and all the news

Thanks for you work getting the site back

Echoing all the above comments, v-flyer has been part of my daily surfing life since 2004 - it's been a strange week without it.

You're a star. thanks again

David

Welcome back Glad you managed to get the most of it back.

Thanks again for your hard work Pete. Real shame about losing all those posts and typical that we always learn the hard way, but I’m sure we’ll all collectively generate new content over time and pick up where we left off.

Thanks for getting things back up & running, Pete!

My immediate thought when I saw the words "hard drive failure, no backup" was - oh bugger, this won't be a quick fix!

Thanks Pete, I am glad you managed to recover the data and got things up and running again.

So glad you are back up and running! Well done!

Thank you, as soon many people have already said, for getting V-Flyer up and running again, Pete.
I don’t post that often but I do read regularly, and have learned so much from everyone in here. This is a great forum with none of the pettiness found in others and I certainly missed it while it was down. So glad to be back.

Fantastic news Pete that you managed to get the site back up, thank you

Nice work Pete.
I too thought V-Flyer was gone for good. as I am also one that has missed his daily fix of V-F.
We can all get on with the improtant things in life now..such as posting itineraries and trip reports and all things that VS gives us cause to discuss.
Thanks
Paul.

I thought it was me but my tech mad son told me it had died and possibly no back up. he said always back up to another server as he lost all his work not to many moons ago. I know how hard it can be trying to explain but we are a good bunch and appreciate all you do.