biggest forum failures

I wasn't sure which one made me laugh more, but I gave you both due credit. Glad to see I'm not the only one who's made such silly mistakes!

 

w00t. I just topped everyone...

I was cleaning up access in my cp, deleted a ftp account that wasn't used anymore that root access to my forum, and it deleted everything in the folder it had access to. Like, the whole forum. Guess when my last backup was? 3-15, almost 3 months ago.

w00t!

At least no posts etc were affected since the database was untouched. Only avatars, gallery items, and attachments seem to be lost.

 

Ouch!

I was SITE Administrator using phpBB3 software,where I did the ultimate bonehead error.I deleted the ENTIRE board of postings.It was blank after that.The delete button was next to a button I wanted to use,but was too tired to notice that I was blowing it.

Then I discovered that the OWNER of the forum NEVER backed up the two years of the board! We had nothing to rebuild with.

The forum died.

:speechless:

P.S.

I always back up my own current forum every 2-4 weeks.

 

noooooooo

that is a very bad mistake to make, shame about the forum, hope the admin wasnt too mad at you.

 

The owner knew he blew it too,therefore he never screamed at me about it.

The members took it much better than I thought they would and even moved to the new forum that was then SMF,that I came to dislike over time and moved to myBB.

Not once did they curse or scream at me.I thought I deserved some for the blunder.

I am very fortunate that many of the members rejoined and stayed with me when I took ownership of the forum from the guy who is a computer expert,but one who seems allergic to backing up forums.He has lost other forums to hackers and since he never backed up the data,they died.

 

2 years? Unbelievable!!

 

I was stunned,but thought the server would have a backup to help us with.They REFUSED to help the owner of the forum I accidentally deleted the posts from.

:mad2:

I had several times TOLD him that I was no longer able to back up the OLD phpBB2 forum database and reminded him after he upgraded to phpBB3,that I still can not back up anything.

That is why I after I gained ownership of the new forum that was now based on SMF software,changed to a different server who will provide a back up if there is a catastrophe.

I then soon changed it to myBB and for the first time was satisfied that I found a forum software that I really like.

I now despise that former server.Why bother backing up anything if they will refuse to use it to help a customer recover their data base with?

 

Installed a modification to the forum - that did not go so well. And had to restore the database.

The problem was, I did not backup the database before I installed the modification - so I had to restore from the nightly backup. The forum lost about 1,500 post for that day.

 

Your current host should provide some means with which you can use crontabs. Backups are much easier when they're automated : )

Edit: And the closest related problem I had was leaving a half hour before my host decided to 'unfix' my fix, so that when I got back the site was thoroughly corrupted and I lost 12 hours of posts when restoring from backup instead of 4 hours.

 

Did you mean Cronjobs?

My forum is so small (97 members) and slow that I do them myself.

It would make sense when the forum is more active requiring frequent back ups to make sure the latest postings are being saved.

 

I think my biggest failure would be deleting my site becuase I had given it to someone else I thoughed would continue it, but he didn't and used it for his own forum that is now also dead. Anyway I was angry and used a secret recovery panel to destroy the forum because I failed.

 

oh no, i made another fail........i set it so that one section and two members had to have posts approved by a mod before they got posted on the forum. i forgot that i had done it, and forgot to tell our mod that she should check in there regularly to look for new posts........it was five days before one of us happened to look and approve the posts there

 

Ooops.

I am surprised that phpBB3 does not show moderated postings needing attention.It should stick out like a sore thumb on the index page.

In myBB,that I use.It shows postings needing moderator attention,right the forum section it is in.This is seen on the Index page.It is visible by this symbol () showing with a number (in it) the number of posts needing moderator action.

 

no, it probably should do though, its a good idea.

 

Same as MordyT, I IP banned myself and had to use my phone to unban myself :/
I also gave someone that JUST registered administrator rights. Woops

 

LOL same thing i did...... LOL
in my case ,the guy became so much happy LOL
i had to tell him that all that happened because of a mistake LOL

 

This so much. Stupid decision i've made.

Also, I have banned myself before...thinking that it was impossible to do

 

As a security measure to prevent cracking, it was decided that we would remove the email addresses of all of the staff members (myself included). After the board had closed, later on I wanted to gain access to it so that I could let other people view the forums for anything they might have contributed. I didn't have my password saved and my email address set to [email protected] so I was basically locked out. Unfortunately the support staff of the service I was using, ZetaBoards, are hilariously slow so it was about two years before I regained control of my account.