Do you close your forum when making a backup?

Do you close your forum when backing up? I always do because its not a good thing leaving your forum open while backing up because it can create problems in the database such as ruining it and corrupting contents.

I will go into more details why its a bad thing to do later on.

---Posted from iPod Touch

 

I don't think we do, but I'm not 100% sure though. Even if we do end up losing posts, it's not a lot and those posts can be very easily made again.

 

I don't see the need to, I'm sure members can understand if a backup had to be restored and a few posts were missing, etc.

 

Do you have an off-site backup system implemented like r1soft? I tend to close down my forums if I'm making a backup, that way nothin messes up/

 

I don't know. Ashley.S. handles the technical end of things on CT so you'll have to ask him that one.

 

Here is why leaving your forum open when creating a backup can be bad thing:

Say you have a large and active forum, and members are posting and engaging in activity every second, and when you create the backup of a forum while members are doing just that it can cause certain areas of the database backup to be incomplete and can ruin certain things in the database, so if you ever need to use it and restore your forum there might be some problems with your forum so its always best to close your forum when doing it just to be on the safe side. I am not exactly sure on how to explain my point

 

No, cos my host just discontinued it and want me to pay for their FTP backup system, I'm going to speak to the CEO about it, because I'm not happy at all, and submitting a ticket won't help at all.

I can understand it for large forums, but for small/medium forums, I don't see the need to

 

Well if you at least have 5-10+ users online its best to close it..

 

If they are online and actively posting, I'd wait until they had finished, as I don't see the point in driving them away by closing the board for a backup...

 

A backup takes like a minute, and I do wait for them to stop posting which I check by viewing who's online.

 

I know it takes like a minute, but if you were in the middle of posting something and the board went off-line, would'nt you get pissed off by it?

 

Yea I know thats why as I mentioned I use the Who's online feature.

 

I have my forum's database backed up automatically every day using MyBB's task manager, so it's not that big of a deal for me.
I always tend to run full backups during the middle of the night when nobody's on, though I never close my forum for that.

 

I'd be pissed. Especially if the board went offline without prior explanation, I'd be wondering if I didn't in fact get banned from the site... It would make me wonder if I'd broken a rule that I didn't know about or something.

 

Guys lets not get off topic.

Do you close your forum when making a backup? Why or why not?

 

Ya, that's why there usually should be a warning made before shutting the forums so users can have the chance to backup their posts[if they're making posts and such]

 

I think best practices would demand that you close when doing a backup. I think a huge site with many posters all night long may lose some posts during a backup. A small site that backs up at 3 in the morning, I don't think it's a big problem.

 

NO! The server can backup without me putting my community on-hold. I close the forums when I move to another domain (which happened yesterday for instance) so that I don't lose members/posts during the move. And also when I update the script, since it's not 'healthy' to run the update otherwise. If there's just a backup to be made, I don't close the forums. I get crazy mad when the host is giving me even 2 minutes of a downtime, will surely not do it myself