Missing orders following snapshot

[Ben.martin]

Hi there,

I provide I.T. support for a company using actinic business 7. We recently consolidated two of their computers (actinic specific pc, and mail server) into one computer.

I created a snapshot image of the site from the old computer, installed Actinic Business V7 on the new computer, and then imported than snapshot. However when the customer tried to download some orders one week later, they got errors on all of the orders. Having browsed the forums i saw someone with a similar problem who was asked to reapply the snapshot. So i did the same.

However, since doing that, the customer has found that after downloading the orders some are now missing. For example, order numbers 10004765 - 10004773 are all missing, yet they have confirmation emails and have received payment for these.

Is there any way to get these back? I have spent a fair bit of time looking over the forum for an answer, trying various suggestions such as;

Checking the ftp site for .ord files.
Checking all the network details and refreshing the site.
Checking they are not in pending or pending payment.
Also tried pulling them down on the old machine with no luck.

Im not actinic expert so any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Regards,

Ben Martin.

[leehack]

A snapshot brings in a complete copy of everything at the time it was made. So if you have a site working for a week and then you re-import a week old snapshot over the top of it, you effectively delete the last week's orders.

Your only hope of seeing them again is if a database backup or snapshot was done before you re-imported. If not, then i'm afraid you've been messing in an area where you really needed some experience before doing so. On a busy site you could have lost 100's of orders with what you have done.

Do they have email copies of the receipts sent to customers on completion of an order? That is another way of at least contacting the customer or seeing what they ordered.

[Ben.martin]

Well thats the thing, it wasn't working for it week it simply sat there on the machine, but wasn't used. It wasn't until the user tried to pull the orders in (there were 29) that it was used, but all 29 errored.

So they were never actually downloaded. Since applying the snapshot its downloaded 16 of the 29, but its not the first 16. So there are odd orders missing. They are no longer on the website, but they do have all the cofirmation emails. Is there anywhere they might be?

[leehack]

Ben

Did you setup the same version of actinic on the new machine as the old? There are quite a few flavours of each version. Moving machines will not affect the orders on your web server. They can be either go titsup due to something happening on the hosting side or they get downloaded, i have not known anything else to bugger them up.

I'm gonna stick my neck out and say that you have different versions conflicting or have inadvertently overwritten some downloaded orders. I do the process mentioned with every site i launch and never had a problem. Either you or your client have downloaded them and then overwritten them IMO.

If they are not on the server, they are gone. The only place to find them is in a backup or a snapshot.

[Ben.martin]

The Versions appear to be the same; 7.0.7.0.0.0 HCFA Actinic Business. And yes, they are not on the server, so they are most certanily gone. Im not sure if there is any back up, when i added the snapshot i know it tried to back the site up, but whether that backs the orders up or not i am unsure?

[leehack]

I would write a timeline of events over the past week and be honest with yourself on it. Then take a look at the dates on any snapshots and database backups you have and see if any can save you.

I think we both know the answer though, so i would spend my time tracing the emails and tying them up with some nice apologetic phonecalls.

[Ben.martin]

Ok here is how it went then;

Thursday 26th July - Actinic Installed and Snapshot applied, computer remains off until Tuesday 31st July.

Tuesday 31st of July - User tries to download orders but received errors on 29/29. Orders were not present in actinic at this stage.

- Snapshot was reapplied, User attempted to download order but actinic only found 16, 16 of which it downloaded without errors.

I can see your point Lee, but i fail to see how it only overwrote or deleted 13/29 all from different dates? If i made some sought of mistake with it i can't see how i managed to retain 16 of the orders? They must be present somewhere surely?

[leehack]

I'd put a large amount on the orders having been downloaded (maybe unknowingly) and the overwritten by the snapshot, so disappeared for good. 99% of the time when something like this happens, somebody has done something and they are not being honest with the other party. They may have been downloaded before the new snapshot was applied but after it was taken.

There is no sensible reason why some would download and others wouldn't unless they had already been downloaded - somebody has to be lying here.

Check the dates on the orders you have, i'm sure you will see a pattern. You need to move on dude, trust me they are 99.9999999999% sure to have disappeared forever.