Problems, problems

good explanations, Sir!

Davesax1965 wrote: ... Whoever owns the site can request a database reboot, of course...

That's what I had in mind - giving more visibility to our exchange here could eventually lead to M@x attention - let's keep it alive, then, right?

Be careful what you wish for. 

We did some consultancy work for a big hospital Trust here in the UK. Four of us went in, feeling we had to give them some value for money. "Let's do some database changes", said the bloke who I worked with, "then we'll reboot it and it should run faster."

Actually, it didn't. Blank screen, wouldn't start up again. NHS Trust with no patient information system, no Radiology records, no A&E... whooooooooops. 

This is why DBA's get paid so much. There's four of us in the board room with the Trust directors. A bit of an atmosphere develops as the minutes tick away. Databases this size take time to start up, so for every attempt, 15 minutes can pass. I'm the junior team member, so I shut up until an hour's gone by, and several of the Directors are going to go bang any moment. I point out that the Oracle control files have become unsynchronised on power down. Known problem with some databases, this one hasn't been rebooted for years. So we check, yep, timestamp out on one control file, delete it and copy another one over, rename the files, power on, works. 

Tons of stories like this. This is why you need a DBA looking after databases, to be honest. This isn't a "mission critical" database, so it won't be monitored. It's an old database. SQL Server doesn't operate like Oracle but every time you power off / power on a database, there's an element of risk. 

That's why DBA's burn out - three and a half year lifespan, typically. I lasted eight years. I ain't going back. ;-)

Could this be ?
- 48 hours with no DB access error !
- Captcha lighter than ever !
... (holding my breath )

Captcha is biting me today. The SQL DB error was actually embedded in the "Most Popular Album" object on the front page. 

I turned on my laptop today made 4 posts and had to wade through captcha after captcha, so no it's still here in full force

Why can't I post new threads?

You're doing the right thing, just block it and be cool
It happened to me a few times also,  if I remember well it has to do with some bad formatation of a post with embedded links (the intention of its author can only be guessed, online one never can know for sure, right?)

Quinino wrote: You're doing the right thing, just block it and be cool It happened to me a few times also,  if I remember well it has to do with some bad formatation of a post with embedded links (the intention of its author can only be guessed, online one never can know for sure, right?)

Ok, thanks!

Its the only forum I visit that any of this happens to me.......Captcha, downloading harmful files and so on.