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Houston, We Had a Problem

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A moment of alarm set in late afternoon on Friday. My site would not load and I realized it was not my connection. Figuring it would be back up soon, I didn’t stress too much about it. That is, until I submitted a ticket and discovered my server was down due to a hardware malfunction and they didn’t know what was causing the problems.

Fast forward a few hours and I am told that we are moving to a different server. At this point I still hadn’t panicked because at least it was happening on a weekend and not at a a busy time or a day when a giveaway was ending.

I mistakenly assumed my site would be up when I woke on Saturday morning but it was not to be until a few hours later at which moment I did panic.

My site had been restored but it was an entire week old! I was missing many posts along with more than TWO THOUSAND comments, most of which were entries on my contests. I was devastated but was almost certain that my host should have a newer backup. They did but it took several tries to get my site updated as of Thursday and that didn’t happen until after midnight on Saturday.

Even with this newer version I was still missing a couple of posts, many of my pictures from this past week and several hundred comments, including those made when the old version of my site was up on Saturday. (Not to mention a virtually completed review and giveaway post that will have to be rewritten tomorrow. Ugh.)

I do have comments emailed to me (not including spam or pending, although pending was pretty much up to date with these changes) and so I had hundreds of missing entries sitting in my mailbox. While I knew it would be a painstakingly slow process, I want to assure you that I sat for a few hours today updating all my giveaways with the missing entries on all my giveaway posts. It was manual and tedious but I wouldn’t have felt right knowing that my readers had done the work to enter a giveaway, only to have it not count.

I wanted to be completely upfront about this in case anyone thought such activities like amount of entries in a short time frame for example, seemed suspicious. I did not update the entries manually for the exact date and time in which they were entered. That would have probably sent me over the edge and it frankly isn’t important. While I’m certain there were a couple that may have gotten missed while sitting in my spam folder of my blog, I did everything I could to make sure I counted all the entries I possibly could. And for that, I can sleep a little better tonight.

I apologize for any inconvenience or confusion this may have caused and thanks for your understanding and patience.

22 Comments

  1. Oh my gosh I’m so sorry! While it sucks at least you have a ‘back up’ for your comments and this is a good reminder that even if it seems like a waste, getting emailed when you get a comment can be a good thing.

  2. I’m sorry that happened, Emilie! It’s so incredibly frustrating and there’s NOTHING you can do about it. Ugh.

    I think you ROCK for going through and manually entering all the giveaway entries. That was really nice of you and shows your dedication to BLM and your readers. 🙂

  3. I was wondering what was going on with your site Emilie when it wouldn’t load for me. I am happy to see it’s back again 🙂 I am sorry you had to manually do all those comments but I will say that your readers do appreciate you and your efforts that you put into running a top notch blog.

  4. You do rock for manually going through the e-mails. Not one person would have expected you to go above and beyond like that, and it’s really pretty sweet.

    Glad to hear your site’s up and running the way it should be now.

  5. I’m so sorry that happened to you. I know how frustrating that can be especially if you don’t know that much about computers like me. What a nice person you are to put all that stuff where it belongs manually!

  6. Sorry that happened! Thanks for making it right with everyone! I am a huge fan of your site and now I am even a BIGGER fan knowing that you went all out to make sure things were fixed. You are awesome!

    1. No problem, Jenny! And I do recall adding a lot of entries back in for you! In a way it was a different way to connect with readers who enter a lot. 🙂

  7. Oh what a pain! You poor thing! You are wonderful to sit and add those entries. I am sure your readers REALLY appreciate that. Glad to hear you are up and running, Emilie!

  8. That is just terrible. It’s so good to hear from you that you did so much work for your followers and those who entered your giveaways. I know that everyone appreciates you!!

  9. I sorta kinda know the feeling. One time I changed my blog template and all the comments dissapeared. My blog is very small, and was only a few months old at the time. I had just stared a giveaway and luckily there was only 23 entries . And luckily I had it set so I got comments emailed to me so I was able to manually put them in. I cant imagine doing it on a blog your size with as many entries as you get! Major Props to you! I know we all appreciate the extra mile you went to do that!

  10. Wow, you really went over and above the call of duty for your readers! Glad to see everything’s back to normal 🙂

  11. Wow…I know nothing about computers and that would have totally freaked me out. How hard to be put in this position. but really was not your fault and I for one would have understood if you had needed to start over a giveaway post from the beginning again. You have a family and that is way more important. Sorry girl…I had no idea as I am mostly in the dark on weekends. I actually think every single day that I’d love to blog myself, but these are the fears that keep me part time reader instead! Hope all is well now and in future!

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