Thursday, April 12, 2007

Update on Crash :(

I am going to post what I just wrote on the Pixie's Previews page of the Punished Brats site to provide a status update and also allow the message to be read by those people that are still experiencing difficulty in viewing our site properly. We have been told by Go Daddy that it will take up to 24 hours for everyone to view the changes I have made by reuploading our site. Although some people see the current site, others still see a November 1st version which is adding to the confusion and frustration.
Website Server Crash

Our web host suffered a major server crash that took out not only our entire site, but also corrupted all of our backup files. After being down completely for 24 hours, we were told that our files could not be salvaged and we would have to rebuild as soon as our site had been transferred to a new server location. The Punished Brats Team is devastated by this news.

We are working dilligently on restoring the site and working out all of the many issues that have popped up. Email accounts have been reinstated. The photos have been reuploaded. We have contacted CCBill to allow member access again ASAP. The PB editor, Eric, is working on restoring and reuploading all of the video clips.

All of the Windows clips posted before November 1st are available. We will be uploading the more recent content in complete movie clips in WMV format first to allow our members to still view the scenes in some format ASAP, and then we will work on providing the segmented clips and RM formats.

During this time, we do plan to continue providing new updates. We will upload new clips and photos while doing our best to restore the 5 months of content that has been lost in the crash.

We are putting every effort into restoring Punished Brats as quickly as possible. We have postponed this Saturday's shoot in order to allow us more time to focus on bringing Brats back to where it needs to be and provide the best customer service we can.

We appreciate your understanding, patience, and support during this time. Thank you to everyone who has written us with words of encouragement! It means so much to us all.

We hope to restore Punished Brats to the quality site you've come to know and enjoy as soon as possible, and once everything has been straightened out, we will do our best to make it up to you.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pixie,

Thank you for the information, and for the email you sent me when I inquired. I know you are working very hard to put everything back together as quickly as possible. David has commented many times on how dedicated you are, and now we can see that, if anything, he understated your tenacity. Again thanks.

Jeoffry

Anonymous said...

Pixie,
I too want to thankyou for providing information to your members, I am one of the members who is only able to access viedos from November 1.
I look forward to being able to view the new material, you have a wonderful site.

Tyger 31

Anonymous said...

Hi pixie

Dont worry Hon it will all come together =)

Duncan

Anonymous said...

Thanks to all of you for working so quickly to make the site at least partially functional again! I hope you're all able to get some sleep soon. We understand, and we'll live!

Anonymous said...

I just want to add my voice with the others in saying that we understand the large undertaking that everyone at PB is attempting, and I deeply appreciate all of your efforts.....
Which should come as no surprise, since I appreciated all of PBs efforts (photos, videos, thought given and time spent) BEFORE the crash... :-)
Hope you're back on your feet soon (which, oddly enough, is probably what many of the spanked ladies on the site thought to themselves while being under the palm....)

Anonymous said...

Hi Pixie,

Sorry to here of your server problems. I have been there twice before myself. First time I lost like about a month worth of design work. Thats why I mirror my drives now. Just blame BIll Gates Like I do. He's a good fall guy for these types of things. I feel for you all. Just remember we are with you in spirit. Hamg in there.

Anonymous said...

Dear Pixie,

Like others I have experienced similar thingsand know there's
a way out!
Wish you and the other team members the strength to recover from this set back. I'm sure you will succeed to restore the site to it's former glory.
Just one request...: Don't wear yourself out..!!
I prefer to see you relaxed (and over the knee) many more times. You're a darling..!!
If there's anythng I can do, let me know.

Funbun
PS: I have a lot of the photo's and movies on file, so when parts are missing, I might be able to help.

Amber Pixie Wells said...

Jeoffry - thank you very much! The entire PB Team is working hard on bringing Brats back to life fully just as soon as we can. :)

Tyger 31 - I hope that you can now see the current version of PB. I've added in a temporary page of links to all scenes that have video clips available. We'll continue adding in the new material daily. I'm so glad you enjoy our site and I hope that you'll be able to enjoy all of the content very soon.

Duncan - thank you. :) it is coming together, slowly, but surely. PS. You've got mail.

Anonymous - I slept like a log last night. I was so wiped out! I'm all rested and ready to continue on plugging away at the restoration.

Dr. Ken - Thank you for being so understanding. Too funny about getting back on our feet. :)

Richk - Bill Gates it is then. Darn him. ;) Sorry to hear you've been through something similar.

Funbun - Thank you! I know you've been where we are a couple of times too. I promise to try not to get too worn out, but I want to make sure I do everything possible to get us up and running again just as fast as we can. Trust me, I'd rather be otk right now too. :)

Anonymous said...

Hummm looks like the server admin will be getting a server caning for not properly backup the website and verify the backup is good by a doing a restoration on a seperate test server. This should be done at lease once a month.

This is the due diligent that a server admin must do. This will ensure that if a hardware or software failure, the web site can be restored to the last known good backup. This will save many hours of work.

Hummm ... where is that senior cane ....

Amber Pixie Wells said...

While I'd certainly accept any caning I'd earned, I can't in this case. We did have the entire site backed up ... both on a separate server as you described (which Go Daddy stated they somehow lost in the crash along with our site) and in hardcopy on disks.

The webpages and photos only took a few hours to re-upload, but the more than 1000 clips (when you consider both RM and WMV versions of all segmented clips plus full movies) ranging in size from 3,000KB to 74,000KB take much longer due to file size.

Eric has been uploading around the clock, but it takes ten times longer to upload a file than to download one. Even with everything saved and backed up twice to the very last update, it still is a monstrous task for us to re-upload from our hardcopy backups given that our host crashed both of our servers. Perhaps they ought to be caned?

In any case, we are nearly back to 100% now which I think is pretty good considering what we were faced with. I'm off to continue to migrate the files and update more pages.

Richard Windsor said...

I think Anonymous should be caned for being so bloody insensitive!! There is a time for playing around and there is a time for being serious, this is the time for being serious.

The ENTIRE PB had everything not only backed up on a back up server with godaddy, but they also kept everything backed up themselves!!

If you read it, godaddy lost both the original and the back up. I assume you meant to say diligence? If so, that is exactly what the PB staff should be praised for!! Their combined diligence meant that the site was functional within 24 hours and almost complete within 36. That ain't too shabby when you consider how much material they had to manually upload to the new server!!

I think it's fair to say that if many sites lost both their original and their back up server it would take a darn site longer than 36 hours to be functional.

The staff of Punishedbrats should be commended for going two days without sleep to ensure 5 star customer service to their subscribers. What they all achieved was nothing short of miraculous. Perhaps you are just using this to play around a bit, in my opinion this isn't the topic to play around with. Pixie, David and Eric worked their tails off dealing with a near catastrophe and should be highly commended for their efforts and dedication to their loyal customers.

Richard 'Houndog' Windsor.

Anonymous said...

I'm stunned at how fast we have recovered. Pixie and Eric both deserve medals. We are all exhausted.

David Pierson

Anonymous said...

I was refering to the "Go Daddy" server admin should be caned.
How can "Go Daddy" lost both the original and the back up" ...
I should have made that very clear.
I will accept the caning that is due to me for the PB team for failing to do that.

"Pixie, David and Eric worked their tails off dealing with a near catastrophe and should be highly commended for their efforts and dedication to their loyal customers."

I cannot agree more.

Thanks ....