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I noticed the entire site was down for a day orso, until just now, but also noticed that we lost a month of topics and replies on the forum.
IMO it's fairly sad that there probably wasn't a more recent backup available from the webhoster.

Bad and unfortunate stuff can always happen with a webserver, either by hardware failure or hack-attempts through fulnerable/outdated software.
I run a webserver myself and know all about it, but this is exactly the reason (recent) backups are very important to have available at all times.

Frank, any ideas what caused the downtime?
I suppose your webhoster takes care of the backups perhaps?

Damn .. been fishing foe a few days missed the down time
Agree re lost info.
I run my own ftp, mail servers and web sites....and do full server auto 'ghost' backups 2x daily....to a spare H drive on the serve and also to remote HD same LAN network
The guys that use to host my sites/ mail over a decade ago now "crashed" during an up grade.
The Professional idiots.. yes idiots because they where professionals did not make full backups of all data before starting
And old saying going back at least 25 yrs now
"He who made a backup, laughs last"

Side note:
Strange how pre computer data, stuff like back ups of family photos whatever was difficult, cumbersome,expensive and storage cost and space huge
Yet these days no space , expense practically nil, automatically done......yet so often it is a problem.

Here how easy it can be.Have a friend with a small business workshop.. runs business software for stock , a/cs everything.
He has a usb HD in a home made firebox backs up every evening...
But also has a android smart phone, runs es file explorer (which also does LAN)....has a short cut on the phone desktop to the usb drive folder that has all his back ups in....hits the desktop icon.. marks and copies the latest auto backup...hit the icon on the phone destop to his backup folder.. hits paste...less than a minute has a regular off site backup
Sure he could do it auto off site to a home computer .. but doesnt wish to have the main ac business machine connected to the 'net
And also this way doesnt have to rely on cloud servers... which after the Christchurch earthquake, many of these IT companies could not access their servers or they where destroyed...

I was away from Friday afternoon until late last night so I only learned about the loss of data this morning. I emailed my web host administrator before I left on Friday afternoon that my web sites are all down.

Normally, the data center makes daily backups with a Raid 10 array but, from what I've learned so far, there was a catastrophic hardware failure and the last good backup they were able to salvage (so far) has been the one from February 25. I've asked them to try to find a more recent backup to restore from but I'm not holding my breath.

I had been working on upgrading my information site and e-store over the past month and I too was a bit disappointed to see that work had been wiped out this morning. At least I made local backups of the the articles I had edited so it wasn't all wasted.

I'm very sorry to see that a month's discussion has been lost (with luck, only temporarily). I've experienced other crashes before and it was fairly straightforward to restore from the previous day's backup so I had been confident that the backups were being done properly.

I'll let you know more about the data restoration situation when I know more. Again, I'm very sorry that this has happened.

It is this sort of stuff that upsets me in this industry.Backups and remote backups are basic recommended practice.. like putting water in a a radiator...
its sort of like a storeman smoking on the job, then flicks the butt behind some pallets, and the warehouse burns down.he is sure to loose his job.
IT there no responsibility other than statements like

....there was a catastrophic hardware failure and the last good backup they were able to salvage (so far) has been the one from.......

So where are the remote backups held at a different location on the back up hardware?
Std recommended industry practice right?
realy doesnt matter if was a hardware failure .. catastrophic hardware failure, or the whole building burt to the ground.. result is the same
The only thing that makes it "catastrophic" is the fact that basic industry practice was not followed.
If it was followed, the hardware failure would have been just that.. and no data loss

And they get way with it....

I've learned (the hard way) you don't really have a backup of anything you have online, as long as you don't have a copy of it in your actual possession.
Unfortunatly you can't always rely on others to take care of your online data.

If it's any consilation, this forum doesn't have much traffic so the amount of lost replies is not that high. Although on that same thought, anything that gets lost on the forum, could be considered a big loss, since the traffic is so low

So true. I make backups before doing software upgrades but I've relied on the data center up until now. This doesn't bode well for "cloud"-based storage of data.

The last word is that they restored the latest good backup so it looks like the last month's data is gone. Sorry.

Frank no apologies need from u.

Yes the 'cloud data' I mention briefly what happened to many NZ companies in The Christchurch earthquake here....

I see it this way re cloud
some time back most of my customers ran their own File, mail, network servers.. like others customers.
Back then IT PPL charged huge hourly rates, often 2x the rate of a good tradesman/workshop...who the latter, had hoists, staff, rent or buildings, and 1000s of bucks tied up in tools...
The IT guy basically need a good knowledge (no 5 yr apprenticeship) a pair of long nose pliers and a couple screw drivers...
Then everytime a new server hardware came out or versions.. the IT guys BSed their way into 'updating ' all this stuff. Yet what they had would do what they need for the next 5 yrs.. and looking back yep.
Then the big 'cloud guys' came along.. basically cut companies IT cost down to around 15 To 20% of what they originally where.
It was not hard.. The IT industry was all about greed and BS
As it turned out the bulk of my customers never saw the financial advantages for a long time... till either business expansion meant update software/ hardware and I could not comet with the cloud financially .. regardless of my warning re storing on the cloud etc
Basically the IT small busines industry cut it own throught.

Then the earthquake came along... back up big thing....for a short while.

My take on cloud storage is it is only ok if you have some other form of backup as well. I used cloud storage for a while and after losing 3 different assignments for 3 different subjects the day before the 1st one was due (they were all due within 5 days of each other) I had no time to re-write any of them properly. I did re-write 1 but the quality was much lower than I wanted but it got sent off. The other 2 ... well ..... lets just say I redid those subjects and got advanced standing for work already completed and was charged for doing the same thing all over again.

I, personally, should have known better but the lure of the cloud and all its benefits were huge cause "everyone is doing it". This little black duck wont be doing it again. Backups in at least 2 other locations is the only safe way to go with data you do not want to lose. That's my not so humble opinion anyway.

Do we know what knocked the site out over easter? is the hosting service going to give you a refund for the downtime?

Tried to contact Frank offering if he needed hosting orsomething.
I actually thought the forum was "history" last weekend and hoped he still had a backup to restore at a different hoster.
Just replied an email back to him.

I had been checking into the forum regularly over the weekend and hadn't noticed any downtime issues since March 20. I believe my web host has been experiencing a lot of hacking attempts on our server and has been proactively blocking ip address ranges. I'm not sure why you didn't have access over the weekend unless some ip ranges were only temporarily blocked.

Well the last time I could get to it was last Thursday around midday Australian eastern standard time. I have tried multiple times a day since then. I tried again this morning and got in just after 8am Australian eastern standard time so all up for me the site has been "offline" for 4 hours short of a full week.

The hoster has probably been blocking entire country IP-ranges to deal with hack-attempts.
We call that "chopping with a blunt axe" around these parts.
Although, I will admit, on my server I'm also blocking entire country IP-ranges. But mostly just 'crap' countries where only hackattempts originate from from hacked computers.

Lol, Australia is now officially a "crap" country

In the eyes of an American webhoster, who knows