Snapshot mess up!!

[Jan]

We use Mozy for offsite backups, it's very useful.

My backup tool is only for local backups, you should always have a proper PC backup schedule in place in addition to using it.

Regards,

[Darren B]

Hi Jan

Cobian does both local, lan and wan backup's all with a schedular thats why i find it so usefull.

I will still take a look at yours though

D

[mash]

Hi any luck with the snapshot? If you take orders on one PC and design on the other, stock is worked out on the order one? Just dashing out so have to go, thanks M

[TraceyHand]

actually, yes, snapshot worked (first time in ages!)

We don't use stock monitoring on this site so it's not an issue for us to split design/uploads and order/downloads per computer

[mash]

I could never work out how the stock adjustments happen, if it was done by the downloading the orders or uploading the site.

Can anyone shed some light on this, thanks M

[TraceyHand]

stock is adjusted IN ACTINIC (on the desktop) when you download but those amended stock levels are not reflected on the website until you upload.

[mash]

Thank you, it would be quite useful if you could have a stock update button or it is linked in with the download orders function instead of the upload side.

So you download orders, stock is adjusted and either you have another button which uploades the new stock amount or clicking on download orders does again does it.

If you do your content on 1 pc and orders on another, you would have to pass a snapshot to the design pc and upload from there to get the stock to work right.

All a bit messy, appreciate why out stock sometimes get out of sink.

Thanks for that, still chasing the final few order which were lost!!

[Simon TL]

Reimporting orders

Hmmm. My client has had a snapshot failure too. We had installed v9 correctly, loaded the snapshot etc and run happily. Until the next snapshot (having switched on coupons, tweaked the areas and postage, and switched on Also Bought and Best Sellers).

And after the snapshot (despite setting the 'don't trash my orders' fields) ALL the old orders had gone. It is downloading new orders but we want the old orders back in.

My client is digging through backups to see what we can recover.

Once that is done, presumably it is safe to:
1. download latest orders
2. close Actinic
3. take a copy of the database as extra security
4. check the keys in the backup and then import the old orders into the current live database

And do I need to deal with the following tables:
Order
OrderHistory
OrderDetail
OrderMail
OrderTracking

(I am comfortable with Access!)

Thanks.

[mash]

It is nightmare when it happens. As the snapshot was unsuccessful the back database had not been written over so was too old to be of use.

We only had a clean snapshot before the weekend, emails from the website with a copy of the orders (12 of these were also missing), recorded of payment and basket code from our payment provider.

So we started from this point, I checked all the orders against the payments, missing ones I just re entered their details and their order using the email sent from the site and we managed to get do to only 12 missing orders. Which we just called the customers and explained the situation and re took their order.

I am still concerned that there are missing orders, did send a copy of the final databases to support as we have Actinic Cover to check if there are any more missing orders but have not heard back from them.

Also when it happened got a ticket opened to see if they could help us with the retrieval of the orders and after two weeks or so, the answer was no, luckily we got on with it and sorted it fingers crossed.

We tackled it through Actinic interface instead of going straight to access, when was the last good snapshot available to you with the old orders?

You would also have to deal with the customer details so person or customer table as well.

How many orders are you chasing, I would be uneasy just to do it thought access unless you understand the complete process. If you can keep the online orders up on the server until you sorted the historical data or until you have a plan.

During the process, I felt like the gambler who travelling to America by ship and lost all his money on cards and consoled himself by thinking 'at lease I got a trip on the Titanic!'.

Sorry I can't be much of a help, good luck, M

[Firecom]

Been there and done that before. Learnt my lesson

Now we backup to an online storage soultion, use 6 external hd's, raid on all pc's and now we have drobo too which is awesome.

overall we back-up to about 10 different locations at a time and do this religiously before we do any snapshot imports.

[Simon TL]

Thanks

Thanks Jake and Mash,

The client has found one safe backup to the end of April so we have much of the old order history. There are two problems - the order history simply for analysis, and then possibly unfullfiled orders.

I guess we have two options:
1. copy the live database, and do a test import (we will have to add the Person table too), park the live database and try using the merged database. That will bring most of the history together.
2. Leave the database separate and import from live to a reporting database where we keep the old orders.

Re the unfufillled orders, thanks Mash for your tips.

And then lesson 99 is the one this thread focusses on. The Mole backup tool looks useful. My own backup is pretty thorough, buy my client's not so. We tend only to have a snapshot once a month - they bring in new products only once a month. All has worked sweetly for the past two or three years

Any further advice very welcome. Thanks...

[mash]

The Mole backup has been installed and doing a great job, we never had a problem really, odd issue but since v9 not so good.

Is there many orders unfinished, if not I would keep the two separate, start a fresh, important to keep on top of it which every way you do it.

Good luck, M

[TraceyHand]

Just FYI, I still can't produce a snapshot on this Vista machine.
It just thinks about it forever and a day but never actually gets to producing one.
I've resorted to having to backup the Site1 folder instead.

I'm about to import into it (NOT overwriting orders)
The way my week is going, it'll failed/crash/wipe everything/self combust etc etc etc

[pinbrook]

Just FYI, I still can't produce a snapshot on this Vista machine.

did you say you were running orders on one machine and design on another? which one wont snapshot?

did you know there is no real need to ever change the order machine? just take orders to design if you want to update bestsellers/also boughts etc. No real need to take it all back to orders machine TBH

(i notice you said you dont stock control the site)

[leehack]

That part has always baffled me somewhat i must say, how the order machine can have an order for a product or products that are not set up within it, is a little beyond me, although pleasing nonetheless.