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Last Post 06 September 2023

Admin

Fighter posted this 13 August 2022

Hello everyone,

This weekend the server will be shutdown for an estimated 2-3 hours interval for some scheduled maintenance. So if you see the site is offline do not think there is something bad or we're under attack or things like that.

I just need this time to make some security upgrades of the Windows Server operating system and also to set the server to take care if itself in some situations because I will leave Bucharest for about 3 weeks and I will not have physical access to it.

For example if here will be some power blackout the server must be able to power itself on and come back online when the power is restored. This is just one of the things which needs to be set as after a power failure I will not be able to power it on remotely by sending a Wake-On-LAN signal (as it's usually done). WOL doesn't work after a power failure.

I apologize for any incovenience.

If during these 3 weeks there will be any unexpected issue don't forget we have our secondary forum for emergency communications and updates:

https://free-energy.proboards.com/

And also be sure the content of the site is safe, we have automated backups running daily to an external secure encrypted location, the data will not be lost even if there is a physical damage of the server.

Regards,

Fighter

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
		Nikola Tesla

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Admin

Fighter posted this 13 August 2022

Hello everyone,

I apologize for any incovenience.

If during these 3 weeks there will be any unexpected issue don't forget we have our secondary forum for emergency communications and updates:

https://free-energy.proboards.com/

Regards,

Fighter

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
		Nikola Tesla

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Admin

Fighter posted this 14 August 2022

Maintenance complete.

Regards,

Fighter

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
		Nikola Tesla

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Admin

Fighter posted this 09 January 2023

Hello everyone,

This evening (Romania's time) the server will go offline for a planned RAM upgrade.

The estimation for the offline duration would be about 30 minutes but it could take longer considering the non-standard enclosure type of the server (which is basically a massive aluminum block with no coolers) and the fact that I never opened it since I bought the server.

So I'll need to be more careful than I'd be with a standard machine during the upgrade operation.

As a usual note: if there will be any unexpected issue don't forget we have our secondary forum for emergency communications and updates:

https://free-energy.proboards.com/

Regards,

Fighter

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
		Nikola Tesla

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Admin

Fighter posted this 12 January 2023

Hello everyone,

First, sorry for the downtime.

Second, here are the updates (which were communicated in real-time to the members of our core team in our secondary/backup forum).

The RAM upgrade went well, it took about 45 minutes, the server started and shown the new RAM capacity but then after I restarted the server several times it failed booting and the SSD was reported as corrupted.

So the SSD (manufactured by Western Digital) which was running 24/7 on our server for more than 4 years has failed.

All the efforts to repair it using standard methods (diskpart, fixmbr, fixboot, rebuildbcd) failed, it was a hardware failure so the obvious choice was to replace it.

So in the next morning I ordered a new bigger and faster SSD (Samsung 870 EVO) and asked for expedited delivery from the store. I received it within about 4 hours and in the evening after I finished my job-related work I started a fresh installation of Windows Server, then SQL Server etc.

As we have automated backups running daily (at midnight, Romania's time) saving the database and site's content to an off-premise encrypted backup there was no data loss.

So after setting the new Windows Server OS, the new SQL Server, setting security and performance settings, updating it with the latest updates from Microsoft, restoring database and site's content and all the necessary things we're back online.

Even if the time that SSD chose to stop functioning was not a good time (it never is 🙂), there are also good things about this incident: we're back online with 0 data loss, a much powerful server having more RAM, bigger and faster SSD and with fresh/faster Windows Server and SQL Server installations.

Below is a screenshot of our fresh Windows Server installation and the standard wallpaper image I always use on the server is showing how our server is handling your requests 😄

There are still things to do like setting again the daily automated backup mechanism, some fine-tuning and other stuff but I'll take care of them as I find time and most of them will be probably done during the next weekend. About the automated backup part, until I'll have time to set it up in the weekend I'll make daily manual backups, the data on our site will continue to be backed up.

Also we'll set some automated cloning and backup of the SSD's partitions in the near future, I didn't considered it necessary until now but after the SSD failure I think we should have that too. I'll talk to Cd_Sharp about it for possible solutions.

Regards,

Fighter

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
		Nikola Tesla

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Admin

Fighter posted this 13 January 2023

Just a small update, I just checked the performance of the new SSD.

Compared to the performance of the previous Western Digital SSD this one is much faster !

It also comes with auto-diagnose and real-time health monitoring an reliability checks so if there will be a potential hardware failure in the future we will know in advance about it, before it happens.

It's really top-tech and top-performance, it was a very good choice.

Fighter

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
		Nikola Tesla

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Admin

Fighter posted this 23 January 2023

The automated backup is up and running again on the server, I just checked it and it's functioning properly.

So from now on no more work on manual backups for me. 🙂

It's running every midnight (Romania's time) and it's making backups of the database and site's files (most important the documents, images and videos uploaded by our members) to an off-premise encrypted location.

Now let's just hope we not gonna need those backups anytime soon... 🙂

Regards,

Fighter

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
		Nikola Tesla

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Admin

Fighter posted this 18 August 2023

Hello everyone,

I will leave Bucharest until the begining of September and I will not have physical access to the server.

Except possible power blackouts or internet connection issues the server should be able to take care of itself. I'll have access to it remotely.

If during this time there will be any unexpected issue don't forget we have our secondary forum for emergency communications and updates:

https://free-energy.proboards.com/

Also be sure the content of the site is safe, we have automated backups running daily to an external secure encrypted location, the data will not be lost even if there is a physical damage of the server.

Regards,

Fighter

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
		Nikola Tesla

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Admin

Fighter posted this 06 September 2023

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the downtime.

We had status updates and communications in our secondary/emergency forum.

This is the post I've made there on 29 August:

Hello guys,

Just half of hour ago I received alert on my phone that the server is down.
On my surveillance camera it seems to be powered on but I cannot access it remotely.
When I ping it from my router it doesn't respond.
Unfortunately without physical access to it I cannot check what the problem is.
It will need to wait until I return to Bucharest next weekend.
Until then we can communicate here.
I'm sorry about this, it's a very bad timing for a server malfunction.
We have backups so there will be no data loss of BeyondUnity, just the site will remain offline until I return to Bucharest and fix the issue whatever it is (hardware or software).

Regards,
Fighter

This evening I arrived in Bucharest and checked.

The server looks fine, I was afraid of a hardware failure but it's not the case.

From a quick overview the cause seems to be a defective Windows Server update received from Microsoft.

The server entered in a loop: tried to install the update, the update failed, the server restarted and tried to install the update again, update failed and so on...

We should thank to our friends from Microsoft for sending updates with issues...

It was a bad moment for this to happen as I was away and because of this issue I lost the remote access to the server.

I'll investigate the logs deeper when I'll have some time to check if there was something else but after a quick overview I see no evidence of any external attack or something suspicious.

Regards,

Fighter