Problems with the PM system

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

I have spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what the issue is with the PM system. The issue is that there are PMs with no subject and the time/date is reporting as a 1969/1970 date.

I have looked at our backups and I have not been able to figure out what the cause is. I also looked at the data in our database and I have not been able to find data that would coorespond with these strange entries.

Lastly, in my own PM box I have an indicator that I have "3" unread PMs but when I open my PM box there are no unread PMs.

I have gone to the software vendor for the forums package to see if they can help me find the cause and to fix it...

If possible, can I get a few of the members that have this issue to post what the oldest PM date is. I also need to know if anybody lost newer PMs? I just need an idea where to look to find the cause...

Thanks and sorry this is taking a while to fix...

[ArtsieAng Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close ArtsieAng]

Ken,

My indicator box is telling me that I have two unread messages. I received, and read both of these messages this morning. Also, my last message keeps popping up even though it has been read, closed, and canceled.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

I have spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what the issue is with the PM system. The issue is that there are PMs with no subject and the time/date is reporting as a 1969/1970 date.
...

Anything past 8-16-07 is showing no subject <they originally did have subjects> and the 12-31-69 date.

Ken don't kill yourself over this. It ISN'T that important!!! Let go and Let G-D. I can live without them.

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

I am off by one and I think I can tell you when this happened. Yesterday when we had the site trouble. I also noticed a post that someone replied to disappeared.

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

I know when it happened... the database got corrupted and I had to restore it from a backup. The issue is from the backup BUT when I went into a previous archive of the data it looks the same...

I have PM received back to June-18-2005 and PMs sent back to 01-04-2006 myself...

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

OK, I have found where the problem is and I am writing a couple scripts that should fix the problem! It is impotant that members DO NOT DELETE the PMs in your PM Boxes with NO SUBJECT or when I get done fixing this or you will NEVER get those PMS!

The PMs that were lost are actually NEWER PMS and not really old PMs as I first thought!

I hope to have this fixed soon but the cde work to do this is a tad bit complicated!

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

OK, I have confirmed my suspissions and I have finally been able to get the PMs data out of the site backup from Tuesday morning at 1AM... I have been able to get this data into a temporary table in the database so I can work with it...

I am now working on creating a script that will move the PMs that got lost from this temporary backup table to our main database...

When I get the script done, I will be turning off the website while this runs... It should not taake more then a couple minutes to run but I can not have anybody reading, sending, or doing ANYTHING with the PM system while the script is working...

Expect this to happen in the next hour unless I run into new problems!

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

OK, it's 2AM and I am going to need to work on this more tomorrow night...

I got a lot of the PMs fixed but our PM system has a TON of old PMs in there so it is talink a lot of time...

For those that had problems, can you please post if you still have problems and if the problems seem better then they were?

Thanks!

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

I"m back to normal except for one old inbox message and I'm still showing one unread message-tho they are all read.

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

I think I fixed something like 500-1000 PMs last night (I didn't count - but it was a huge list)... The ones that are not working at this time were all from Tuesday when the database had issues...

I did an emergency backup at that time and I hope that I will be able to recover the last of the PMs off that backup tonight... As of the "unred message, it is possible that PM is in the ones that still need be be brought over. The PM system uses three seperate tables and the unred count comes from a table I have not tried to fix yet...

Our PM system is really bloated and I really need to ask members to try to delete old PMs that are not needed... There are almost 16,000 PMs in the database!

Ken

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

OK, I went to the emergency backup I took when the database started havng problems and I have saved as many PMs as I can... There were a total of 15PMs that were lost! (to put in perspectibe, I had over 40-PMs myself that were lost!)

The PMs that were lost were ALL from Tuesday morning between 1AM EST and about Noon EST but not all of the PMs from Tuesday during this time were lost! The issue was the database started to crash and I shut things down really quick as I was on the site and realized we had a problem as the system was sending me e-mails about errors every couple seconds (I get critical notices on my phone) and while I like the vibration in my pocket I did what I could to stop this ASAP.

I don't think this had to do with the POINTS security issue however as I had just installed the script that is giving us the fancy new URLs and I belive that when it installed there were too many people on the site and that it was all the activity on the site that caused problems with the install and from there everything started to crash...

For my own reference, following is a list of the PMs that were lost by PMID number (No use to anybody but me but it keeps them were I can find them):

1 - 25374 DELETED
2 - 25372 DELETED
3 - 25370 DELETED
4 - 25368 DELETED
5 - 25366 DELETED
6 - 25364 DELETED
7 - 25361 DELETED
8 - 25360 DELETED
9 - 25357 DELETED
10 - 25353 DELETED
11 - 25351 DELETED
12 - 25350 DELETED
13 - 25347 DELETED
14 - 25343 DELETED
15 - 25342 DELETED

So, now that these have been removed there should be no more PMs with no subject line or strange dates!

I will be working on fixing the PM count table tonight as that is a completely seperate issue...

[djyamyam Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close djyamyam]

So, now that these have been removed there should be no more PMs with no subject line or strange dates!

Ken, I still have one PM in my "in" box that has the 12/31/1969 date and shows as unread.

DJ

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

That is impossible... Please drink a case of anything you like (with an adequate Alcohol content) and I am sure you will not see the issue anymore...

OK, just kidding...

I ran my script again as I discovered I limited the script and there were a couple more entries that needed to be gone....

So, do you still have an issue?

[djyamyam Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close djyamyam]

Nothing like a case of beer to make things look good! We're "in-box" is fixed for the dates!

Thanks, QB

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

I'm good now, except for the message count of 1.