What has this site done?

[Bangkok Barry]

This site was pretty much unreachable for a couple of days this week and has now returned with a new format. While fixing something that (as far as I know) didn't need fixing, they've created irritating problems. Some of the formatting is off and avatars and icons no longer show up.

I assume I'm not the only one having problems.

[darksidedog]

What this site has "done" is to recover from an unexpected complete crash.

A hell of a lot of work has gone on to get the site back up and at least semi functional. It is unfortunate that there are issues remaining, though the technical team are working almost non stop to get it right. A little understanding would help at this point, along with a little patience.

EDIT: It was a malicious DDoS event that caused it, not negligence by TVF.

[colinneil]

5 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

 A little understanding would help at this point, along with a little patience.

[steve187]

29 minutes ago, Bangkok Barry said:

This site was pretty much unreachable for a couple of days this week and has now returned with a new format. While fixing something that (as far as I know) didn't need fixing, they've created irritating problems. Some of the formatting is off and avatars and icons no longer show up.

I assume I'm not the only one having problems.

whatever the reason, i quite like the new format, will be better once the gremlins are sorted, its not the end of the world for the site to be down for a few days, gives some posters something to moan about when it comes back on line

[NCC1701A]

i hope they can't find the purple graphics.  

[NCC1701A]

15 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

What this site has "done" is to recover from an unexpected complete crash.

i back up all my brilliance on this site so if you need to access it let me know.  

[ThreeEyedRaven]

I consider its return a miracle. After all it has been over 2,000 years since something died and came back to life after three days.

[donnacha]

It is not unreasonable to expect a major site, minting money through truly absurd levels of advertising, to remain accessible.

I am not impatient. I presumed the site would reappear eventually, but let's not pretend that it is complicated to keep a PHP & MySQL-based forum running. Over the past few years, I cannot think of any other major Invision forum that massacred its own Google rankings by disappearing for three days. 

There should be no such thing as an "unexpected" crash - whether website or forum, you automate your backups and, if there is a problem, you simply restore from your last good backup. The whole thing should take no more than five minutes. It doesn't even cost money to set this up properly.

Instead, I watched in real-time as your "technical team" mucked about with Cloudflare settings. I presume this means that you actually got DDoS'd or hacked.

Rather than lambast @Bangkok Barry for daring to bring it up, you should acknowledge that the forum's job of providing a platform for the community was not fulfilled over the past few days. You owe nothing to any of us but, at the same time, the profitability of your platform depends on keeping your users engaged.

 

[ezzra]

It was said that 'If it ain't broken, don't fix it... but what do i know right?...

[NCC1701A]

i sure hope the email addresses associated with our accounts are encrypted. 

 

[Rimmer]

The site was also migrated to a new server location, not everything is up and working yet.

[simon43]

You were using Cloudfare before?  I thought one major reason to use Cloudfare was to protect against DDoS attacks.

 

Can you ask for your money back? ????

[habuspasha]

Am I right in thinking the support of the Nation and its news ended some time before the crash?  The news was getting older and older before it disappeared completely.

[Thomas J]

56 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

What this site has "done" is to recover from an unexpected complete crash.

Well there may be a few bugs which is to be expected but I think the new format looks very nice.  I was unaware that it was due to a complete crash but that means that the site was not prepared to rebuild and yet did so expeditiously. 

[tomazbodner]

33 minutes ago, donnacha said:

It is not unreasonable to expect a major site, minting money through truly absurd levels of advertising, to remain accessible.

I am not impatient. I presumed the site would reappear eventually, but let's not pretend that it is complicated to keep a PHP & MySQL-based forum running. Over the past few years, I cannot think of any other major Invision forum that massacred its own Google rankings by disappearing for three days. 

There should be no such thing as an "unexpected" crash - whether website or forum, you automate your backups and, if there is a problem, you simply restore from your last good backup. The whole thing should take no more than five minutes. It doesn't even cost money to set this up properly.

Instead, I watched in real-time as your "technical team" mucked about with Cloudflare settings. I presume this means that you actually got DDoS'd or hacked.

Rather than lambast @Bangkok Barry for daring to bring it up, you should acknowledge that the forum's job of providing a platform for the community was not fulfilled over the past few days. You owe nothing to any of us but, at the same time, the profitability of your platform depends on keeping your users engaged.

 

How about you take off your pink glasses and glance at these 2 pages to see how accurate your statement is for 2021:

https://thehackernews.com/

https://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/

[polpott]

59 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

EDIT: It was a malicious DDoS event that caused it, not negligence by TVF.

By whom? A rival forum? Thai government? The Russians?

[xylophone]

57 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

It was a malicious DDoS event that caused it, not negligence by TVF.

So someone purposely orchestrated a malicious attack on the site? 

There are some sad/sick people around with too much time on their hands. All the best to the techies working on it...

[donnacha]

8 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

How about you take off your pink glasses and glance at these 2 pages to see how accurate your statement is for 2021:

https://thehackernews.com/

 

https://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/

Neither of those links - to the home pages of news sites on the broad subject of hacking - were in any way relevant to this discussion.

Again, no other major Invision forum disappears for 3 days. If you get hacked, you simply restore from your last unhacked backup and are online again before almost anyone notices. No complicated dance moves required.

Thank you for wasting two unrecoverable minutes of my life.

 

Edited March 11, 2021 by donnacha

[NanLaew]

39 minutes ago, donnacha said:

Instead, I watched in real-time as your "technical team" mucked about with Cloudflare settings. I presume this means that you actually got DDoS'd or hacked.

You did what now? Watched a crashed website for a day-and-a-half?

I went fishing, cooked dinner, did some shopping, fixed up an old water pump and checked out some home improvement stuff for a friend.

What color is your anorak?

[donnacha]

1 minute ago, NanLaew said:

You did what now? Watched a crashed website for a day-and-a-half?

Nope, not what I said. When I went to see if the forum was back I simply examined the headers. I work in this field, so, I am naturally curious about the mistakes that lead people to get hacked or DDoS'd, and how they handle the situation.
 

4 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

I went fishing, cooked dinner, did some shopping, fixed up an old water pump and checked out some home improvement stuff for a friend.

I look forward to being retired too someday.
 

[NCC1701A]

11 minutes ago, polpott said:

By whom? A rival forum? Thai government? The Russians?

hi.

Edited March 11, 2021 by NCC1701A

[polpott]

1 minute ago, NCC1701A said:

hi.

So you're a Russian bot? I always suspected as much.

[NCC1701A]

Just now, polpott said:

So you're a Russian bot? I always suspected as much.

you have to admit this is the most fun we have had on this forum in years.. or since the last time this happened. 

and don't think i did not notice that last crash you got your forum avatar back before me and it has happened again.  

[2530Ubon]

3 minutes ago, NCC1701A said:

hi.

NCC1701A has been assimilated into the collective. Resistance is futile.

[anchadian]

I pity those people who rely and post on TVF 24 hrs a day.

Don't they have better things to do with their life?

Such a shame.  

[donnacha]

It is practically impossible to get DDoS'd if you remain hidden behind Cloudflare. The attackers can only bypass Cloudflare if you somehow reveal your server's actual IP address, probably through a DNS configuration error, or running some services directly.

Once they have your server's IP address they can hammer it directly. There is nothing that you or Cloudflare can do about that.

The solution is to immediately fire up another server (with a different IP address), restore the most recent backup of your site to it,  and redirect your domain, via Cloudflare, to your new server. As everything is going through Cloudflare, you don't even need to wait for new DNS details to propagate.

That should not take more than 20 minutes, including ordering the new server.

No matter how how catastrophic an attack may seem to be, you are golden as long as you keep regular backups and are ready to spin up a new server whenever the need arises.

 

[Ventenio]

It was a malicious DDoS event that caused it.........

Sorry, I am new to computers and the Universe in general.  

DDos appears to be an acronym for Dirty Falang Do Shiiiiiaaaaaaate.

don't be in denial.  

[NCC1701A]

7 minutes ago, anchadian said:

I pity those people who rely and post on TVF 24 hrs a day.

Don't they have better things to do with their life?

Such a shame.  

my staff does it for me. 

[AlfHuy]

28 minutes ago, polpott said:

By whom? A rival forum? Thai government? The Russians?

Fake news.

 

It was Donald. He has now much more free time to get his hands on TV webpage.

[J Town]

I've always felt I got my money's worth.