Reason for the recent unpleasantness..

[BillMorrow]

NO, not talking about the election but rather talking about the forum outage..
hostmonster FINALLY got around to troubleshooting the db outage and below is their report:
****************************

Hello,

Thank you for your reply. I am truly sorry for the delay in our response. Our case queues are larger than normal at the moment. I am following up on this issue with your MySQL service being offline. I am happy to report I was able to bring MySQL back online. I am sorry about the extended downtime you experienced while we investigated this issue.

After further investigation it appears that MySQL was unable to start due to a missing log file:

2021-01-20 15:56:50 47705228732064 [ERROR] mysqld: File '/var/lib/mysql/mysql-bin.000302' not found (Errcode: 2 "No such file or directory")
2021-01-20 15:56:50 47705228732064 [ERROR] Failed to open log (file '/var/lib/mysql/mysql-bin.000302', errno 2)
2021-01-20 15:56:50 47705228732064 [ERROR] Could not open log file
2021-01-20 15:56:50 47705228732064 [ERROR] Can't init tc log
2021-01-20 15:56:50 47705228732064 [ERROR] Aborting

I was able to fix this by removing the log file entry in /var/lib/mysql/mysql-bin.index. Once done I was able to get MySQL back online. The service is currently running now:

root@server.billmorrow.com [mysql]# service mysql status
SUCCESS! MariaDB running (15587)

Please let me know if you have any additional questions. Don't forget to click that ORANGE "Tell Me How I Did" button at the bottom of this email to take my quick 2 question survey. There's a great section at the end to leave any feedback.

Thank you,
Joshua C
Escalated Support

********************************

so there all y'all are, things are now humming along with no more than the usual bots trying to get in and hack the forum and/or the dedicated server someplace in the internet ether..
i have to ask, someone, somewhere, what the eff happened to cause a log file to go 'poof' in the night and disappear..?

All this might be a sign.. a sign of what..? not yet sure.. a sign to start learning how to maintain my own web site.. a sign to start thinking about google ad sense or something since donations are few and far between..
the final takeaway is a am pee'd that i was helpless to deal with what should have been a simple fix..

[w0qj]

Just admit it... forgot to pay for the electricity bill, right?

It's GOOD to have ThinkPads.com back!!

[fatkatsupra1]

Bill,

Thank you for getting the forum back on line. It is a true resource!

[atagunov]

The ww web hasn't been quite right last couple of days, thx for fixing it!

[BillMorrow]

Just admit it... forgot to pay for the electricity bill, right?

It's GOOD to have ThinkPads.com back!!

now THAT was a good one..

[theterminator93]

Glad you were able to engage the right people to get us back up and running. Thanks Bill!

[mpcook]

Thanks for all you do Bill, to keep this running. Just a reminder to all, make a small donation if you can.

[unixed]

2021-01-20 15:56:50 47705228732064 [ERROR] mysqld: File '/var/lib/mysql/mysql-bin.000302' not found (Errcode: 2 "No such file or directory")
2021-01-20 15:56:50 47705228732064 [ERROR] Failed to open log (file '/var/lib/mysql/mysql-bin.000302', errno 2)
2021-01-20 15:56:50 47705228732064 [ERROR] Could not open log file
2021-01-20 15:56:50 47705228732064 [ERROR] Can't init tc log
2021-01-20 15:56:50 47705228732064 [ERROR] Aborting
...
i have to ask, someone, somewhere, what the eff happened to cause a log file to go 'poof' in the night and disappear..?

The file's deletion is one possibility but perhaps not the likeliest. There are others such as the file couldn't be created due to lack of space or file permission attributes.
Deleting the log file entry treats the symptom, but the problem may reappear, which would be the case if it is disk space.
/var stands for the top-level variable directory, is typically on a separate partition so that if it fills up (due to it's variable nature -- typically log files and so on with no predetermined size or number) it doesn't bring the entire machine to an unfixable state -- and this may have happened. To see how much space there is, type this at the root prompt (indicated with # -- omit typing the #):
# df -h /var/lib/mysql/
[diskfree -human-readable ...]

To see what files (the missing file was a binary log file) are in that directory, when they were created and what size they are, type :
# ls -lh /var/lib/mysql/
[list -long human-readable ...]

This way you can at least see if diminishing disk/partition space precedes mysql's crash.
There should also be an error log file if it is specified and enabled. Perusal may indicate what caused the problem.
If you type:
# cat /etc/mysql/my.cnf
or
# cat /etc/my.cnf
(I don't know how yours is set up, type:
# find /etc -name "my.cnf"
if neither of the preceding two commands work, then substitute in the result of the above search for the filename), then you should be able to see where those log files are and if they are enabled. If the information scrolls off your screen, just filter the output:
# cat /etc/mysql/my.cnf | grep -i "log"
or equivalently
# grep -i "log" /etc/mysql/my.cnf
If you find that disk space is the problem then someone would have to do something like stop mysql writing the binary log files, issue SQL commands to purge the bin log files then restart writing the log files.

If you are not comfortable with the above at least it's a basis for communicating with whoever administers your machine should the problems reoccur.
I don't administer systems professionally and mysql is not my database of choice, but the above is in case your question wasn't meant to be rhetorical.
Thank you for making this community possible, Bill.

[TRS-80]

a sign to start thinking about google ad sense or something since donations are few and far between..

Is this the only donations thread?

I will be very happy to throw a few bucks, as I have learned so much from this wonderful resource over the years.

However a more general suggestion, perhaps consider publishing your numbers or perhaps a monthly / yearly goal / funding drive to at least cover the ongoing hosting or whatever other fees you have?

As someone who has been involved in a number of different online communities over the years, I have learned that it is usually one or a few individuals keeping the lights on behind the scenes. And some times things are getting bad, people are losing interest, or funding things largely out of their own pockets some times. And some times that can go all the way to the point of failure, all the while those one or few people suffering in silence, and then some valuable resource disappears off the Internet. I don't think any of us want to see that.

However, if and when a fundraising drive is done, or numbers are published, or some need is announced, most of the time I have seen the community respond with overwhelming support. I know that I personally would, and I can't help but think that others feel the same way.

I think it is in the nature of good people not to ask for money. That is very noble, but I think we all appreciate all you have done over all these years Bill, and many of us don't expect you to come out of pocket on top of all your time and effort you have put in which is even more valuable.

[mpcook]

a sign to start thinking about google ad sense or something since donations are few and far between..

Is this the only donations thread?

I will be very happy to throw a few bucks, as I have learned so much from this wonderful resource over the years.

However a more general suggestion, perhaps consider publishing your numbers or perhaps a monthly / yearly goal / funding drive to at least cover the ongoing hosting or whatever other fees you have?

As someone who has been involved in a number of different online communities over the years, I have learned that it is usually one or a few individuals keeping the lights on behind the scenes. And some times things are getting bad, people are losing interest, or funding things largely out of their own pockets some times. And some times that can go all the way to the point of failure, all the while those one or few people suffering in silence, and then some valuable resource disappears off the Internet. I don't think any of us want to see that.

However, if and when a fundraising drive is done, or numbers are published, or some need is announced, most of the time I have seen the community respond with overwhelming support. I know that I personally would, and I can't help but think that others feel the same way.

I think it is in the nature of good people not to ask for money. That is very noble, but I think we all appreciate all you have done over all these years Bill, and many of us don't expect you to come out of pocket on top of all your time and effort you have put in which is even more valuable.

What he said!

[RealBlackStuff]

I'll repeat my post (from 2009) here from the above mentioned Donation thread:

For those people who just can't wait: Donate using PayPal
Bless you for your impatience!

The link goes straight to PayPal and puts your donation directly in Bill Morrow's PayPal account.
Looks like this:

Once there, click on the Price per item field to enter your amount.

[BillMorrow]

thanks for all the positive comments..
as for getting down into the coding, i would not DARE to risk effing it up..
i used to edit the banner but after joe hayes did a lot of work making the place look more professional i tried using a WYSIWYG html editor the effing editor changed code i had not touched and it all went sideways so i keep my hands off, now..

and i do not like to ask for $$.. like lying, it is not possible for me..

i might publish a monthly report.. interesting thought..

but since we are on the new server with a more knowledgeable hosting owner things should be smoother..

still have a couple of issues to deal with, like needing to manually refresh a page when going back to it after making a change..

going to see about limiting some of the search bots to google and bing and duckduckgo..

[TRS-80]

going to see about limiting some of the search bots to google and bing and duckduckgo..

I have no idea how much bandwidth we are talking, but maybe consider giving some of the little guys a chance to get off the ground? Personally I have had about enough of Big Brother (Google) and go out of my way not to use any of their "services."

I try out new search engines and technologies (especially de-centralized ones) somewhat frequently, most of them still have a long way to go, unfortunately.

My point of view is, what good is a free and open Internet, if all the entrances to it (search engines) are controlled by the same 2-3 usual suspects (and using black box proprietary software, to boot)? We are reaching Orwellian levels of information control, I fear.

Just some food for thought.

Cheers,
TRS-80

[dr_st]

My point of view is, what good is a free and open Internet, if all the entrances to it (search engines) are controlled by the same 2-3 usual suspects (and using black box proprietary software, to boot)? We are reaching Orwellian levels of information control, I fear.

Yep.

In general, open, de-regulated market works well when all the players have comparable size and power. When it's not - it doesn't work well. That's why anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws are built into any reasonable system. 100% pure capitalism will not work much better than 100% pure communism.