I was in the final stages of a routine upgrade of our servers. All the videos and supporting software of the site had been moved to the current server, and the last step was to move over the current snapshot of the database and double check to ensure everything was correct.

However, in an unfortunate confluence of events, our old hosting provider's scheduled maintenance disrupted the copying of the database, and while their scheduled maintenance was going on (preventing any access to either our old server or their support system) their automated systems deleted and re-provisioned our old server. This means that all of the recent changes to the database from the last snapshot are lost forever. Luckily or unluckily depending on how you look at it, the last snapshot was from 4 days ago, and is what you see here.

This means that every new thread, new video, reply, diagram, game reply, wiki update, user registration, PM, or any other permanent state change on the website from the last 4 days is gone forever. I am deeply sorry for any inconvenience this caused, and am in a somewhat stunned state right now that this could have happened.

Here are steps you can take if you were affected in some way:

1) If you signed up for a premium membership, please email me at admin@chessvideos.tv and I will fix everything as best I can
2) If you signed up for the site, please sign up again
3) If you posted a video that is no longer on the site, please re-upload it
4) If you posted a thread or reply, please post it again

Also, because I didn't get the chance to double check everything, I am certain there will be parts of the website that do not work correctly. If you see anything that isn't working like it should, please mention it in this thread and will do my best to put everything back together and get it running smoothly again.

I know the feeling of doing something once and then due to some computer crash or something having to do it again, and it really sucks. I am sorry that I could have let that happen to any of your contributions to the site, and will take steps to prevent this from every happening in the future.

Also for a lot of you it will appear the site was down for 10-12 hours. In reality, the site was only down for about 30 minutes, but due to DNS propagation issues it will appear much longer to many of you. Once you can successfully view the website again you are good to go, and shouldn't have any further access issues.

I've tried uploading a video again, but I get this error: "Error connecting to chess-videos.com, please try again later..."

Dude, You must have been sweating bullits!

I wasn't online much at all yesterday, but this morning (monday) I noticed it right away and was heading for this section to write a "what happened" posts and found these messages.

Of course I was very busy the last 4 days with Kingsblade videos and pycho-babble, but oh well, shit happens! I guess we can reupload the videos.

This too, shall pass!

Sorry all! We're still sorting all this out, so bear with us for the next 24 hours.

Also, if you have any questions/concerns, please send me a PM or email.

Wouldn't you have taken a snapshot right before the move? Anyway- my condolences. I once lost a blog of my entire trip to China to bring my adopted daughter home. Two weeks of very extensive posts and photos- the entire story of her adoption- vanished forever due to a similar server migration snafu. I still get upset thinking about it. I hope the rest of the day goes better, guys- good luck!

FYI I just reposted my post for the Carlsen- Wang Yue game and instead of the replayer link, you see "error connecting to database".

Bummer dudes!

Thanks for letting us know. Also, this is the place to report things missing/down/generally weird!

trying to post a vid I get error connecting to chess-videos.com, please try again later...

so i will try again later

Yeah, I can't upload. Same message, "Error connecting to chess-videos.com, please try again later..."

Sorry guys! This will be sorted out soon.

Bummers... I guess the old saw about anything that can be done automatically for you can be done automatically to you strikes again. Back in the day when I was running a BBS (on an AT clone which connected to the world through a 2400 baud modem... and that was state of the art telecom at the time!), my board got hosed on two different occasions. In my experience, you recover and a week later it's all forgotten so the old saw about this too shall pass also applies. Hang in there guys!

=wild=

Thanks for the encouragement!

Ack!

The video uploader isn't working because chess-videos.com is still pointing to the wrong server! I have updated the underlying DNS settings, which should take a few hours to fully propagate to everybody.

I was taking the snapshot right as the server died, which is the last thing that needs to be done to complete the move. I also get upset thinking about this snafu