Database Status Page
The status of the database is currently: DOWN
What’s the short version?
On the morning of March 21st 2023, the NTA was notified of a database outage. He is working to resolve it but he is one person and the database has needed a complete overhaul for years; it may finally be beyond repair. If you are a PHP Developer/Database Engineer and would like to volunteer, please email the NTA, you will gain our eternal gratitude and shiny nerd points.
What do we do in the meantime?
The following is the new/temporary policy on approvals.
Please email a current copy of your character sheet to your VST. This will serve as your official copy of your sheet in case there are any questions.
For Low approval characters and items, please email a copy of your character to your local VST for their approval.
For Mid or DST level approvals email your VST and DST and get both to sign off. Ideally the VST should say yes before the DST weighs in. We’re not being that formal. As long as both agree in the chain that’s ok.
For High or RST level approvals email your VST, DST and RST. If your RST wants to have an ARST in on the thread they’ll add them to the chain. Then follow the same as above with getting everyone to sign off on the approval.
Lastly for Top or NST level approvals, Email your VST, DST, RST, Venue lead, Anst: CoS (anst.chief@st.modernenigmasociety.org) and NST.
Once everyone has signed off on the approval in an email, please fill out the following form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfrunLSPAGfmW0FIA47JbT75w4fioWSUAyEBo4dPkBqd-Z-9g/viewform
All VST and DSTs will be added to the back end sheets of the form from above. This will give them access to review and search approvals by their domain.
All RSTs and above will have access to the higher approval tabs. If a VST or DST needs a list of everything in their domain please contact your RST. They will be able to do a search and cut and paste of all your approvals.
If there are any questions please feel free to email me or your RSTs.
I understand that this is not the most elegant solution to the issue, but this should get the approvals process up and running again.
Matt Wood
NST
US2002022927
PS to make things easier the following are the Venue lead emails.
Dreaming-anst@dream.modernenigmasociety.org
Sabbat-War never changes- anst@sabbat.modernenigmasociety.org
C/A/I 13th Hour- anst@masq.modernenigmasociety.org
Apoc- anst@apoc.modernenigmasociety.org
What’s the long version?
So, the hard and fast truth is, the DB is down and I am ill equipped to get it back online quickly. I have put 30+ hours into it this week and while progress is made, we’re just at a point where the effort to get it back online is going to be a lot. We’ve kept this DB together through the years with a lot of elbow grease, hacks, and duct tape, but now it needs a good deal more than that.
tldr; The code of the front end of the DB is old enough that many of the core commands are now no longer able to work with the latest Amazon database code.
Longer version: Amazon forced an update on our backend database to get it up to a supported version. We can’t roll it back, and if we restore it from a backup, Amazon will force it to update again. I can try to move the database onto a local drive of a new EC2 instance but given the code set, reconfiguring it to connect to it locally and getting all the right PHP pieces in place on an old unsupported DB version is likely just an act of futility. I was able to get a new web server online, and with more simple and modern PHP code, I was able to get it to connect to the DB, which is a fine start, but now we hit the issue. I am not a web programmer. I can do a lot of core IT functions, but PHP developer is not one of them. If we have anyone out there with strong experience in PHP coding and DB connections, I would be happy to talk, but this is not for the faint of heart. We are doing what we can, but I do not see this being online in the near future. I will offer updates when I have them, but for now we’ll need to make do with being in the dark ages for a bit. Sorry… I wish I had better news.