Sunday, May 28, 2006

Books back from the grave

There was a minor crash. No books were lost. In fact, the problem is just the opposite. If you deleted a book on Saturday, you will find it's back. The same goes for book-data changes made Saturday (excluding tags, reviews, comments, summaries and any combinations); these changes will have "snapped back" 24 hours. Also, if you added a book on Saturday, and tagged it after—not while—adding, you may find the order of the book's tags has shifted. This is what happens when the main system fails, but the backup systems (writing all new books to a file and having backups in CA and NY) do not. I've learned some lessons from this one too, so future problems should have less impact.

I'm looking forward to the coming week. On Monday Abby finally comes up to Maine, and we buy some cheap Staples furniture. On Tuesday, LibraryThing officially hires two people. Announcements to follow..

PS: It's a little slow this morning. It needs to build up a "cache."

18 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Looks like I picked the wrong day to finally tidy up some authors etc., but most of it was combining works and the odd author, so if that is not lost it is good,.

5/28/2006 6:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Phew!
I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms, sitting a my desk amidst piles of books and staring at "temporarily offline":)
Have a great week!

5/28/2006 7:42 AM  
Blogger Tim said...

There should be a "Methadone" for that. I nominate "WineLog," the new "LibraryThing for wine" site. (I'll blog it soon. I just want it known I thought of the idea eight months ago. And here I echo at least 100 people who've told me they thought of LibraryThing before me.) :)

T

5/28/2006 8:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I noticed that the Thing-ology blog link was offline as well even if the Librarything blog wasn't.

It's too bad that I can't just turn a corner in Portland, OR and end up in Portland, ME

5/28/2006 10:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually , some tag strings added while adding books , on Add page, not Edit page, have alphabetised themselves, which was not the intended order. However this is a very minor gliche.
hailelib

5/28/2006 12:17 PM  
Blogger Tim said...

rballis/littlerock: Yes, that'll do it. I've moved all the rballis books over to littlerock.

ricardus: What does this mean "I notice that when I am editing the information on my library, it has a tendency to stick which happened last night!"? Your edits are not sticking. Give me an example?

hailelib: I see what you mean. I think the distinction is that if you added them AS you added the book, they are set. If you edited them, even within "add books" they are changed. If you're seeing alphabetical, that's kismet, not policy.

Jeannette: The tags database wasn't affected, except as regards order (on tags edited in the last 24 hours). Can you show me a place where the tags are gone?

5/28/2006 9:15 PM  
Blogger Tim said...

Ricardus: Oh, I get it. I can well believe there was a time slow-down. When the DB restarts it's like a baby, with no memory of anything. Over time it builds up a certain level of sophistication about what it needs to keep in memory vs. has to read from the disk. I trust it's up to speed now.

5/28/2006 10:40 PM  
Blogger Tim said...

Yes, user-supplied covers during that day were lost. Technically I still have them, but the link to them has been lost.

5/28/2006 10:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tim,

When I look at :- http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=delete+this

(bluetyson)

It says there are three things there (and I realise the 2-3 I added the other day are gone), but when I click on the tag, nothing comes up, as in no books at all.

5/28/2006 10:56 PM  
Blogger Tim said...

It was offline for five minutes.

Forward me your name or email. I'll be glad to refund you.

5/29/2006 12:12 AM  
Blogger Tim said...

Ricardus: LibraryThing can't know the language of an Arabic textbook if you take it from Amazon—they don't say. If you take it from a library they might say, but not always. (See http://www.librarything.com/blog/2006/04/librarything-adds-language-support.php).

5/29/2006 12:14 AM  
Blogger Tim said...

I fixed the MacHen thing manually. The ratty data is coming from somewhere—probably Amazon. Indeed, although Machen wins overall, that particular form is actually the most "popular" full name, so it wins for the "global" level.

5/29/2006 12:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There is another 'phantom' tag too I noticed, I had a 'Doc Save', where I was too hopeless to type Doc Savage correctly - and this one I know I fixed on 'Crash Day' - so it has reverted, but no book on that tag now if you click on it.

Is it possible to get rid of these sometime? I imagine it possibly happened to more than one person, unless it was just a case of the time these were done (and timezone).

Thanks,

bluetyson

5/30/2006 12:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I prefer tags. That way I can classify the books in several ways without having to remember which folder I put the thing in. I've done that. Frustrating!

Out of curiousity, ricardus, does your method of finding covers dig up out-of-print covers as well? Those are the ones I need. How about the covers of old regional or privately printed books with no ISBN? I love the cover upload feature of LT.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

5/30/2006 10:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ricardus said " Well, WTF, It's offline again, does that mean CRASHED!
If all my work is pissed down the toilet again, I'm going to ask for a refund and buy a real program!!!!!"


I'd give him his money back, and cancel his account as well. He's too cranky by half.

5/30/2006 12:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

WineLog? If the next thing you say is that MusicThing is about to launch I'll have to reconsider that whole god hypothesis. ;)

BTW, kudos on the new profile pages. I *love* the reviews page in particular. Good work!

5/30/2006 4:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK, Tim, I checked out WineLog. I even signed up. It's a pale shade of what LibraryThing does, though. Its only use seems to be a log of wines tasted, and perhaps a review of each wine.

The moment a WineThing is launched I will delete my account there because my biggest problem isn't tasting notes - it's figuring out what the hell is in my cellar. Just imagine the kinds of statistics you can cross-generate among LT, WT and MusicThing!

"Hmmm... there is a spike of Anne Rice readers drinking Vampire Pinot Noir and listening to Depeche Mode. And Harry Potter readers favor White Zinfandel and N'Sync. Interesting!" ;)

/shameless begging

5/30/2006 5:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes a program like book collector might suit you. One of the things about LT is that it actually works via some collective good will with capacity to share interests among other members.

5/31/2006 5:02 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home