Damian Cugley ([info]damiancugley) wrote,
  • Mood: distressed

Picky Picky Game broken

The server that the Pickly Picky Game was on crashed this morning (network card failed). I restarted the database server (ZEO) this afternoon, but the database seems to have reverted to its state as of a few weeks ago -- that is, all the additions since we started the game proper are missing. When Adrian gets back to the office we are going to see if there is a better copy of the database on the recent backup of the computer.

I can't tell youy how distressed I am at the thought that all of those wonderful pictures might be lost for good. Let's hope we can repair this.

If I cannot rely on ZEO/ZODB to keep the data straight then I need to rethink (again) the foundations of the Picky Picky Game web application -- storing the data as plain old files, perhaps.

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  • 19 comments

[info]cleanskies

July 17 2003, 08:15:43 UTC 8 years ago

shit

shit, shit

(etc.)

[info]tinyjo

July 17 2003, 09:10:16 UTC 8 years ago

*hugs* shit - I'm really sorry to hear that! Here's hoping we can get stuff from somewhere.

[info]jinty

July 17 2003, 09:18:19 UTC 8 years ago

Very sorry indeed to hear this. As you say,let's hope it's recoverable in one way or another. Hugs.

[info]damiancugley

July 17 2003, 09:27:56 UTC 8 years ago

Pickled old pictures

I have dig through my Internet Explorere cache to retrieve the candidates for panels 16 to 20. All I have, alas! is the images themselves. I have put them on a temporary page http://caption.org/2003/pickled/

Even if we cannot retrieve the original database, we may be able to reassemble some semblance of the old storyline -- and start a new the Picky Picky Game. Sigh.

[info]damiancugley

July 17 2003, 09:46:40 UTC 8 years ago

YOU can help!

If you can, I would appreciate it if you could look through your web browser cache to see if you can find any Picky Picky Game pictures stored there.

If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer, you do this by finding the file-system folder named C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files or C:\Windows\Profiles\USERNAME\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
(where you replace USERNAME with you own Windows username). On my Windows XP machine, you can click on the Internet Address column header to sort by URL, and then scroll down to find URLs starting with http://caption.org/ or http://www.caption.org/.

If you use a Mozilla-based browser (such as Phoenix, Firebird, Netscape 7, Camino, ...), you can try visiting the special url about:cache and see if there is anything useful listed. I find it harder to navigate than the IE cache, sadly.

Right now I am most interested in the following:

  1. Images for panels after #20 (with URLs ending with sample/21/foo.gif and so on)

  2. sample/pageN.html and sample/ (these contain the information about artists and voting).

If you find any cached files, save them to a folder on your disc (so they don't get tidied away) and post a reply to this comment so I can work out how to get them from you.

[info]cleanskies

July 17 2003, 10:16:13 UTC 8 years ago

Re: YOU can help!

Also got page 3 cached. I've put 'em on a disk in case they aren't at home. I was going to put them on worldisround, but I seem to have mislaid any evidence that I ever joined them.

[info]jinty

July 17 2003, 11:40:09 UTC 8 years ago

Re: YOU can help!

I tried to be helpful, but at work I don't seem to have any of them cached (I think they are stored on the proxy server) and at home on Safari i couldn't find them. The cache stuff for Safari seems to be saved in some file that isn't readily openable; unless it's possible to use the Mozilla-type command as above? Nope, that doesn't seem to work.

[info]cleanskies

July 17 2003, 09:52:44 UTC 8 years ago

Re: Pickled old pictures

I've got 21-25 cached here OK, as well as the current round pictures, if needed (though we probably have them at home, too).

[info]damiancugley

July 17 2003, 10:00:02 UTC 8 years ago

Re: Pickled old pictures

Great!

We can look though the cache(s) on our home computers tonight and decide after that whether we need to go to whatever lengths to copy the files you have at work. If we are not doing anything Friday night then I can do something to make an interactive 'Pickled' version of the old story and see if I can start a new one. Or something. :-)

We can also start trying to reconstruct the artist info from memory ... :-(

[info]cleanskies

July 17 2003, 10:17:48 UTC 8 years ago

Re: Pickled old pictures

well, we do know the winners' names at least, but ....

[info]grocko

July 17 2003, 12:10:55 UTC 8 years ago

just having the briefiest of looks I've all the pics for panels 23 and 24 -and I've probably got the rest squirreled away... does that help?

[info]grocko

July 17 2003, 13:01:35 UTC 8 years ago

Actually I've got 'em all.

[info]cleanskies

July 17 2003, 17:20:40 UTC 8 years ago

lifesaver!

We are getting there, but still missing bits -- according to Damian

21/scanny1.jpg (Jeremy)
21/who-wants.png (Jeremy)
24/pickypickypanel24-b.jpg (Mike)
24/frogthoat.jpg (Mooncat)

As well as all of this week's panel 25 (the one being voted on) and one of the candidates for 26 (which noone is likely to have cached since it cannot be read yet).

(I'd call but I think it's getting a bit late now)

http://caption.org/2003/games/sample/page0.html
if you want to check through for holes and inconsistencies.

Thanks again ....

[info]grocko

July 17 2003, 18:41:25 UTC 8 years ago

Re: lifesaver!

I've put up the one's you've listed here:
http://www.groc.org.uk/picky/

Orf to find panel 25 for you now..

[info]cleanskies

July 18 2003, 02:11:10 UTC 8 years ago

Re: lifesaver!

yay! (tired now)

[info]e_pepys

July 17 2003, 14:09:12 UTC 8 years ago

Panels 22-24

I saved the this from my cache (went offline, typed in the URL, and saved HTML, images, etc): view or download.

I hacked the HTML a bit to make the links work, but otherwise it's unchanged (after all, I could have changed the votes :-)

[info]damiancugley

July 17 2003, 16:58:55 UTC 8 years ago

Re: Panels 22-24

Thanks, that's incredibly helpful!

Using this and some files rescued by Jeremy, I now have pieced together a new 'page 0' covering panels 16 to 24 which is almost complete! All it is missing is a few of the pictures for panels 21 and 24:
  • 21/scanny1.jpg (Jeremy)
  • 21/who-wants.png (Jeremy)
  • 24/pickypickypanel24-b.jpg (Mike)
  • 24/frogthoat.jpg (Mooncat)

Still missing all of this week's panel 25 (the one being voted on) and the candidates for 26 (which noone is likely to have cached since it cannot be read yet).

[info]e_pepys

July 17 2003, 17:12:58 UTC 8 years ago

Re: Panels 22-24

I think those two from panel 24 were among the files I recovered - or did they get renamed somehow?

http://hepunx.rl.ac.uk/~adye/caption.org/caption-cgi/hello.cgi/sample/24/pickypickypanel24-b.jpg
http://hepunx.rl.ac.uk/~adye/caption.org/caption-cgi/hello.cgi/sample/24/frogthoat.jpg

[info]damiancugley

July 17 2003, 17:29:31 UTC 8 years ago

Re: Panels 22-24

You’re right—I missed them when doing the copying. They are uploaded now.

Thanks
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