(2nd March 2008) Update on last few weeks and current situation!

[Serj]

Hi everybody and welcome back to the site. We are now back up and running but not back to 100%.

The site went down due to an operating system issue which was unexpected. It took down all the sites database with it and nothing was recoverable. Luckily I had all the files so all the files are on our new server but the problem lies that the database used to restore the forum and download database is nearly a year out of date. This has caused the following problems:

1. Anyone who has registered does not have an account anymore and will need to register again.
2. Anyone who has been given VIP access or donated has no VIP account.
3. Any files added in the last year were not listed in download database.
4. Categories added in last year were missing.
5. All files that were missing have the uploaders name as goldenagecomics.co.uk

Sooo this is what I have done or propose to overcome these issues.
1. If you do not have an account you will just need to register and activate your account, sorry about this but only way about it.

2. If you was given VIP access by aussie as an uploader please contact me or aussie500 again and you will be given VIP status. If your a donator please send me a PM or email (zcultfm@gmail.com) with your paypal email addy you used when sending the donation so I can verify your account and add you back to VIP section. (DO NOT SEND ANYONE ELSE PMs ABOUT DONATIONS AS I HANDLE THIS)

3. Way our download script works is when a file gets uploaded its renamed to a randomly generated filename and extension as a security feature and so no one can guess the url to files and download/rip them easily. This presented a problem when 80GB of files were not on system and I was left with files I did not know contents of. I spent the last week adding these files to the download script via the aid of 2 little programs I wrote in php and Visual Basic.

I have done following:
* First to find our what rough contents of each randomnamed file is my VB program just opened each file and read the first file inside. This was great for files containing imaged named: comic name issue 5 page 4.jpg as it made more sense but some contained image names like 00.jpg which tells us nothing what comic is.
* Next I took these filenames and built a php script to auto insert all the files into the unsorted category. So if you check out that category you will see over 1000 files. They need to be renamed, edited, added to new categories and the ones with filenames like: 0000 etc need to be downloaded and their correct filename verified.

As this is a community I am asking if anyone wants to help out in the sorting process? If you do post here and all trusted members will be given mod access on the site to carry out these edits etc. If any members spot any problems or download a file named incorrectly please report it on the forum so it can be edited.

4. I have manually added all missing categories by hand via the aid of google cache but some category images are missing and need to be edited over time.

5. If you know you have uploaded a file and want your name back as uploader let us know and we will edit it.


I know all this is a right pain in the a$$ but least we have all our files intact and least the site is back up in one form or another.
Forum looks very old currently so start your posting and lets fill the site back up again.

We have also now taken steps to make sure this doesn't happen again. We use to take file backups as well as database backups but back last march it seems the database backup script stopped working and I should have noticed this but I never did. I now have a new system which backs up files and databases to another server and my PC and if it fails I will know about it so I've made sure this problem never causes so much hassle to site.

[boox909]

Serj,

Thanks so much for your efforts. 

I appreciate all that you and everyone has done.

I am willing to help out as a moderator with sorting.

Folks, I am looking at this as a new birth for GA-UK which will make the site
stronger and better in a brief time.

Let's not forget to give thanks for Serj's efforts at getting things back on track.

Boox 

[Serj]

Also for all donators who were set up to donate monthly automatically via the site. You will need to re-donate to set it back up because as far as I can see there are not donators in the auto database.

For steps on how to donate please see below:

[citaltras]

Happy so see this site back again and that at least all the comics files are still there.
Seems that my account is untouched.
I am willing to help sorting if needed.
Actually, when the server went down I was in the process of downloading and storing month by month
the comics uploaded since last July. I started from December 2007 and went back in time. I was able to burn 3DVDs containing the months from mid September to December 2007, before the server crashed.

[phabox]

Glad to see things getting back to normal , a BIG "Thank You" to serj and the team for putting in the time to get back online.

Like many things its only when they are no longer around you relalise just how important they are to you.

I was really missing my daily visits to the site to see what new books had turned up and check the messages to see what the lastest "hot" topic was and somehow my life seemed less exciting with the site down,...Sad or what ?

Wish I could be of more help but sadly I lack the IT Knowhow to be much good here and I have a low paying but fullfilling job working with special needs kids so don't have much in the way of spare cash to splash about otherwise I would be more than happy to send some of it in this direction  .

The GOOD NEWS is that I still have a good few unscanned Golden Age books left over from my ' richer times' and have dug a couple of these, Plastic Man_050 and Crack Western_084 to scan over the next couple of weeks so I like to think that I am still "doing my bit" for the site.

Best Wishes,

-Nigel/"Phabox"

[Serj]

For all donators ill hopefully have a script online so you can fill in your username/paypal email addy and if its in history of paypal transactions made in the past it will auto set up you as a VIP.

My plan is to make this script within next 24 hours once paypal send me history logs for all transactions and script will be manual so all past doantors will need to enter their details into it to confirm them against recrods. Theres no point me making script automatic and check registered accounts as half the donators do not have accounts currently.

[jcolag]

Excellent work under terrible conditions, Serj.

For the filenames, I have a possible suggestion that might help move things along:  If someone generates a list of, for example, MD5 hashes of every file, you can compare the hash values to the files you have.  Wherever they match, rename one file to the next.  (Create two hashes/associative arrays/whatever your language of choice calls'em, and insert each filename by key, then output "rename <garbled name> <original name>" for each MD5 value.  Then run that file as a batch file or shell script, obviously depending on the operating system.)

I'll gladly volunteer on my end, but I've renamed a lot of files for consistency's sake--usually, that means simplifying the title ("Hit" rather than "Hit Comics"), removing the dates and company name, and often the scanner's name--so it might be smarter to use someone else's archive.

Again, thanks for getting this back into shape.  I don't even want to think about how much time it must've taken to rebuild!

[Serj]

Excellent work under terrible conditions, Serj.

For the filenames, I have a possible suggestion that might help move things along:  If someone generates a list of, for example, MD5 hashes of every file, you can compare the hash values to the files you have.  Wherever they match, rename one file to the next.  (Create two hashes/associative arrays/whatever your language of choice calls'em, and insert each filename by key, then output "rename <garbled name> <original name>" for each MD5 value.  Then run that file as a batch file or shell script, obviously depending on the operating system.)

I'll gladly volunteer on my end, but I've renamed a lot of files for consistency's sake--usually, that means simplifying the title ("Hit" rather than "Hit Comics"), removing the dates and company name, and often the scanner's name--so it might be smarter to use someone else's archive.

Thats a good idea
Again, thanks for getting this back into shape.  I don't even want to think about how much time it must've taken to rebuild!

[Lanfeust]

Finally back! Thank you very much for having made it - I was missing this website! If need be, I can provide the comics I downloaded if they're not recoverable from the database. I'll check on my PC to see what I have.

[Yoc]

It's Aliiiiiiiiiiive!   
I'm willing to help restore the files as a moderator if needed.

-Yoc

[Serj]

All files that were not in the database back in March 2007 are currently in the unsorted category. So no new files are needed to be uploaded. All we need are a group of users to slowly go through files, rename the title and add a description etc and then move them to a suitable category.

I do like the idea about MD5 hashes thou so i'm looking into that now and if so chances are ill create a small little windows program that will collect all md5 hashes of the renamed random filenames I have and then if few users who have most of files can also run it and results when compared will show what md5 hash corresponds to a more user friendly filename etc plus also can get filesize as currently all unsorted files have a filesize of 0mb which isn't great for a website that tracks people downloading files per mb etc

[kolchack]

i cannot register to 'goldenage comics uk' site because, strangely, there is no link on the site to do so ... please help.

[Serj]

i cannot register to 'goldenage comics uk' site because, strangely, there is no link on the site to do so ... please help.

Your forum account is your download comic site account. So login with your forums username/password.

[narfstar]

I re-registered.  Just check the scans to know that narfstar has uploaded just a few files 
I also donated so need to be up to VIP.  JIM

[Serj]

I re-registered.  Just check the scans to know that narfstar has uploaded just a few files 
I also donated so need to be up to VIP.  JIM

VIP status updated. Sorry about losing your account