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Data erase hits TV Central blog

Updated: Australian TV blog TV Central has had its entire news archive erased but the web host claims the site did not follow technical advice.

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Updated: Australian television blog TV Central has had its entire news archive erased after the alleged failure of a migration by its webhost.

All back up and history were lost.

Editor Aaron Ryan says he was advised of the news at 1:30pm yesterday.

“Not since the death of my sister back in 1997 have I been dealt such a blow. The people that work on the site are so dedicated and I must admit that when I am not working my second job outside the television landscape I am either sleeping or working on the website.

“Every ounce of passion goes into the site and this is heartbreaking,” he said.

The Perth-based site, which is owned by Ryan and includes several Contributors, was previously known as ‘TV Auscast’ before a re-branding about two years ago.

Legal action by TV Central is said to be proceeding.

But Mr. Cheyne Jonstone, Chief Executive Officer of VentraIP Group, has since issued a Press Release denying claims made by the site.

“As always, every story has two sides, and the unfortunate situation in this story is that it is simply a case of a client not taking appropriate action when prompted. We do keep backups of our customers websites.

“On a daily basis we restore two to three accounts from our archives after a client has accidently deleted files or overwritten something they shouldn’t have, however in certain circumstances when the data volume reaches a certain size in a clients account, or the amount of server resources required to backup particular files such as video and audio reaches a limit, we inform customers in writing that due to this reason their account will no longer be part of our backup process, and that they should ensure that they have a copy of their data in the unlikely event of a server crash or if they need to restore files for any reason.

“It is not a published fact, but our system will keep the clients data in the backup system for seven days after this notice has been issued, which gives the client time to reduce the amount of data being backed up so that we can resume backing up the data on behalf of the client, or make alternate arrangements.”

In a lengthy statement on their website VentraIP details communications between TV Central’s Editor Aaron Ryan and their staff.

It says in part:

“As a highly compassionate person, I feel for Mr. Ryan’s situation and if I found that there had been any wrong doing by my staff at any stage throughout this event, I would be at his mercy. However, after a very thorough investigation and taking in to account all of the facts, I have found that our staff have acted in accordance with our tried and tested policies and procedures, and Mr. Ryan’s failure to act and respond to several written requests is ultimately the cause of this unfortunate event.

“Mr. Ryan has since made many claims to us and threatened legal action both in private and now in public, and as such we will not make any further comment on the matter.”

36 Responses

  1. I felt something was not right when TV Central was offline last weekend. The news that the website was wiped out is horrible. I feel sorry for Aaron and the contributors (I know CJM, who regularly posts here, is one of the contributors).
    I still think most of the content is salvageable, even though the advanced guides, the press releases and synopsis of Sci-Fi dramas are gone. Aaron has done more than 50 podcasts over the years, so he must still have the original audio recordings. CJM will also have original ratings data from OzTAM (same data David posts here every day). Aaron should also try Internet Archive Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) which has an archive of the homepage of his website from last year.
    All the best to Aaron on restoring his website.

  3. Seems VentraIP have come back with their own press release with a statement of facts as they see it.

    Interesting read….

    ventraip.com.au/files/pr-tvc-130212.pdf

  5. One cannot blame VentraIP for this.
    Check out both sides of the story, not hard to do peeps.
    Typically, someone wanted everything for nothing and didn’t realise they were shooting themselves in the foot.
    Sister’s death? Quite a lame statement which reflects poorly on Ryan’s character IMO.
    Having said this, I wouldn’t wish either on anybody, ever…

  6. I am not questioning this must be devastating for Aaron, but I do believe this press release does shed some light onto the situation: ventraip.com.au/files/pr-tvc-130212.pdf

    As a long time customer of VentraIP, there service has always been excellent whenever I’ve been in need of it. Even during the time when I accidentally deleted one of my sites, they were able to restore a backup for me. A backup that was made by me I should add.

    That really is the lesson here, you always, always need to make backups.

  7. As the owner of a website for the last 15 years, I understand how devastating this must be. For all of those saying ‘make a personal backup’ – unfortunately that is great advice in hindsight. In reality, such a backup is rarely required when you pay your hosts to do such things for you.

    It takes an event such as this one for people like Aaron to be more cautious from now on, but that does him no good in the meantime.

  8. They may be able to recover some content via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine – wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.tvcentral.com.au
    Or also by putting a link in Google and selecting “cache”, other content may be available – webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uHh-wETioX0J:www.tvcentral.com.au/2012/02/08/wednesday-february-8th/

  9. This is sad news. The thing I loved about TV Central was their podcast! It was great to listen to when i was bored. I hope ‘TV Central’ continues in some from. Good luck for the future Ryan!

  10. I’m amazed this still happens, I guess they relied on the web host too much and I know nothing of the back up procedures so can’t comment further.

    I hope something can be done for the future of the site.

    David I guess you’ll be looking at your BU procedures?

  12. As sad as this is it surprises me just like everyone else has said “Why didn’t you backup yourself?” It doesn’t take that much to do. It would take 5-10 minutes tops to backup an entire website plus if you do regular backups then all you need to do is backup the data that has been added since the last backup so not the whole lot. I hope it does return but i come to TV Tonight for most of my info as David does a great job.

  13. how could ventralip let something like this happen, year of articles lost because of their mistake, good idea to take legal action, i dont think anyone would want to do business with ventralip anymore.

  15. Nice of your David to let us know! TV Central also has very information ratings posts which is what I’ll miss most – fingers crossed they get everything up and running again eventually.

  16. While I’m sorry for his loss, you have to wonder what it takes to have a backup for yourself, especially if it’s your own livelihood.

    I’m reminded a bit of the pensioners who lose all their savings when a single company goes broke. Who invests everything in one place?

  17. Wow what terrible luck did he see a black cat or just walk underneith a ladder, either way a terrible thing wont be good for his or the sites reputation. Hope that never happens to you David you do a great job.

  18. I like TV Central for their guides otherwise TV Tonight s*its all over them.. They show the episde number and the season number that TV Tonight guides do not show. Any chance you could incoporate them in the Guides section???

  19. I was wandering why the heck it wasn’t working. I find TVCentral is the best website for advanced guides and amendments, while TV Tonight is the best for everything else. Although Throng has had better stories lately IMO

    Hope they find their way back, damn that webhost.

  20. Ah right. That explains it then. Mind you being a web developer myself i find it surprising that they don’t have regular backups. I know i advise all my clients that weekly backups are a must and you shouldn’t just rely on the host to do it. Just surprises me being a major website.

  22. It beggars belief that neither the person(s) responsible for migrating his site nor Ryan himself have a backup of the site. If Ryan spent most of his waking time working on the site, surely some of it could’ve been directed to taking a snapshot every week and storing it offline?

    Still, VentraIP should also have taken at least one backup of the live site before commencing the migration, and that backup should have been stored on a different server to mitigate against just this sort of disaster.

    Meanwhile, Television commentator and host of the TV Tonight blog, David Knox, stated that he was at home watching television at the time and not walking his dog anywhere near any datacentres.

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