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."
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."
posted by Tim at 5:55 AM
librarything.com)
30 Comments:
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,.
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!
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
Well I'm upset. All that work gone up in smoke! I don't have time to screw with it another day so I'll just leave it as it is. That just sucks! Now I have duplicates as well. Librarything is starting to show its shortcomings and when is the new, so-called professional version coming online?
I notice that when I am editing the information on my library, it has a tendency to stick which happened last night! It is starting to do it now as well, should I stop? I don't want all my work to go down the toilet again!
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
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
Actually, I lost all of my books except the ones that I added on Saturday :-( I think it's because I changed my username on Saturday, so all of the books remained on my old username account ("rbailis"), along with all their tags and reviews. The thing is, my "littlerock" account is lifetime, and "rbailis" is not. Is there a way you can transfer my books back to my current account, please? Damn...
All the tags I did yesterday were lost. :( All that work for nothing. What a waste of time!!!
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?
New user-supplied covers were evidently lost.
Yes, new user supplied covers were lost. Luckily, I had them in a folder and so redoing it was not a problem. Also, all of the information I edited like authors and editors was still there. However, the tags had to be redone. On the "sticking" issue, Tim, for some inexplicable reason, during the editing and updating process, changing information like the correct spelling of authors names or attaching a cover, it would take a much longer than usual time for the change to take place. I was noticing that a lot last night just before the system crashed. When it did it again this morning, I got really nervous! That's my best non-technical description.
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.
As far as Language support goes, I have two books for studying Arabic that are for the most part in Arabic! Yet I don't see that in my "funstatistics" area.
Lastly, all the books that I have by the Author J. Gresham Machen are OK as far as spelling of the last name is concerned. However, it very irritatingly appears as MacHen in my Author Cloud. Can that be corrected?
Yes, user-supplied covers during that day were lost. Technically I still have them, but the link to them has been lost.
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.
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!!!!!
It was offline for five minutes.
Forward me your name or email. I'll be glad to refund you.
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).
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.
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
Well I decided not to get a refund. I am waiting for the new and improved though.
Instead I got a trial copy of Book Collector and am investigating its various features.
So far it is showing itself to be quite good. The Automatic mode searches and gets book covers from all the different sources. And they all appear the same size.
Instead of tags they use folders.
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
exvivre writes: "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."
You might want to take a look at Cellar Tracker
I don't use it and am not associated with it in any way, but a few of my serious wine geek friends, particularly those with large cellars or cellars in varying states of maturity, seem to like it a lot.
P.S. Sorry about the two deletes above-I forgot to close my html tag!
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