And we’re back…
As you might have noticed, the Lexicon has had some technical problems over the past week or so. We’re in the process of updating and upgrading everything. Part of the process involved transferring some domains around, and along the way an error resulted in the www.hp-lexicon.info domain losing its DNS settings. We can’t reset them until the transfer is complete. So in the meantime, you can access the site at www.hplex.org and www.hplex.info. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience.
I’ve just switched the What’s New blog back on. I’ll be updating it as things come back on line properly. Just about everything is working the way it’s supposed to, with the exception of the Timelines. We’re working on that and hopefully will have restored very soon.
In the meantime, welcome back!
September 5th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Steve, I was seriously worried for a little while, thanks for trying so hard to get everything back up.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
It is good to see the Lexicon back.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I am so sorry about the outage. It’s so frustrating when the site goes out and there’s no way to let people know what’s going on. Thanks for your good wishes!
September 5th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I got really worried when I tried my link and the page couldn’t be displayed. First no “What’s New?” in ages and then that. I thought you were gone… Glad you’re back! Missed you!
September 5th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Thanks, it’s good to be back. If anyone spots a problem page, something that isn’t displaying correctly or which had bad links, by all means let me know by posting here.
September 6th, 2008 at 1:03 am
HURRAH! Missed you so much!
What a pleasant surprise to find the site back up.
Even though there wasn’t anything new I thought of you often.
Thanks for all your hard work, Steve. Try not to leave us again or we’ll hex you–or maybe that’s what happened?
Well, welcome back, Mr. Vander Ark, welcome back!
September 6th, 2008 at 4:17 am
This is good news! I missed Lex. It would be a shame to lose it. Cheers!
September 6th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Thank Merlin! You scared me there, Steve…I honestly thought you were closing down the Lexicon!
September 6th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
No worries there. I’ve had trouble finding the time to work on it much over the past months, but that’s all changing. Right now I’m working my way through the Magical Items section, adding the last few odds and ends and updating the pages. It’s actually very relaxing
Now if I could just get the Timelines sorted out…but I may have to start re-entering all the data, which will take quite some time, I’m afraid.
September 6th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Can I ask what the problem with the timelines are? Re-entering the data seems to me to be doing it the hard way.
September 6th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
We are missing two data tables. We’ve been searching for backups, but we don’t have any on our servers. Since we don’t have access to the old servers and those backups, we’ll most likely have to re-enter it all.
September 6th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I have at least a partial database dump from 28th March 2007 if that is any use.
September 6th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I’m sorry to hear about all the problems and frustration. Just wanted to say I’m glad you’re back and thanks for all the hard work you put into this.
September 6th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Hooray! I’m glad you’re back. However, did go to Wikipedia and check and got to the Lexicon by using the IP address. Thanks for keeping Wikipedia updated.
September 7th, 2008 at 12:24 am
So glad to see the Lexicon. I, too, was getting seriously worried.
September 7th, 2008 at 2:58 am
I’m glad you’re back; I didn’t have any way of contacting you other than through the Lexicon e-mail address, and I honestly thought the domain had expired, so that wasn’t really worth much.
Here’s a thought (outages will happen; it’s an inevitability of working in Muggle technology): either have a status page that’s hosted off-site (the way LiveJournal does), or if the site goes down again, you can always post to Wikipedia at the Lexicon page.
It’s not perfect, but it will get the word out to other people who will think to check there, and they can pass the word around.
September 7th, 2008 at 4:19 am
Roonwit, we’re looking for two tables called “timelines” (or it may be “timeline”) and “hpl_icons”.
Steve
September 7th, 2008 at 7:05 am
The dump I have has includes timeline, timeline_custom, timeline_links, timeline_tags, hpl_icons
and hpl_icon_use, in fact it probably has every table except the forum ones. Of course it is a year and a half old and pre-DH, but probably better than starting from scratch.
September 7th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Roonwit, that’s fantastic news! Why don’t we take this to email and we’ll work out how to proceed. steve.va@gmail.com
Steve
September 7th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I notice www.hp-lexicon.info has started working again.
September 7th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
YAY!
September 7th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
You had us all worried for so long!
I’m so happy you are back nad I just hope we get regular updates to, at least, know you haven’t given up on this site.
September 7th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Give up? Not us. Just a bit distracted for awhile there. I will try to give regular updates on the What’s New, although a lot of the work I’m doing right now doesn’t warrant much of a mention…things like redoing links and changing pages from the old design to the new one.
But good news! The timelines are back up and running, thanks to roonwit. They are probably missing some data, and as soon as I can I’ll work on getting them back up to date.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:15 am
Welcome back, I was really worried.
September 8th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Hurrah for the return of the Lexicon! Thanks so much for all that you do for us fans.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
why you don’t have access to the old servers?
September 9th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
David, because they’re not our servers, they’re someone else’s. I have asked them if they can check for those files, but they haven’t had a chance to do it and might not get around to it, from what they’ve said. So we’re doing our best with what we have.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Welcome back, Steve. Any plans for a Lexicon podcast? I have been starved for some serious canon discussion.
September 11th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I always thought it would be a lot of fun to do a podcast, but I just don’t have time for that on top of everything else. I figure that somewhere along the line I might get a chance to do some canon discussions on someone else’s podcast. But for now, no, sorry.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:59 am
Steve! Thank Merlin the Lexicon is okay! I was so worried when it wasn’t working. I come here on a daily basis. I couldn’t live without it. I love the Harry Potter Lexicon! Thank you for all the hard work you do for us Potterheads!
September 14th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Thank you so much for your hard work and bringing the lexicon back! It means so much to us fans to see there is someone who loves HP enough to run such an amazing, wonderful website. I wouldn’t know where I was without this page here, in terms of writing fanfiction or stilling my hunger for HP. Thank you so much, and I hope this site will stay with us for a long, long time! You deserve loads of respect!
September 16th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I am very glad to see the Lexicon back, too. I expected the worst and am glad it isn’t so.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I’m glad you’re back. Good luck with everything !
September 24th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I am SO GLAD to find that I can now get to the HPL. I had been dismayed by the long period of inactivity (since February) but understood you had OTHER THINGS THAT SHALL BE NAMELESS to bother you. I was very worried when you seemed to have dropped out of cyberspace leaving obly a broken link behind. Now you are back, I shall be happy to drop in from time to time. Keep up the good work. You have lots of friends out here.
September 25th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Good to see you back Steve.
September 27th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Oh thank the gods! I was so upset when I thought the Lexicon had been shut down! With the whole mess of everything, I thought we’d lost a WONDERFUL and MUCH NEEDED site! Thank you so much for working to get it back up and running. I was ready to cry at the loss!
I really depend on the Lexicon for fact checking and such!
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!
October 1st, 2008 at 2:57 am
So glad that that lexicon is up and running again! Thanks, Steve.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Well, keep the podcast idea on the back burner, for now. Like I mentioned above, canon discussions which actually analyze the books in an intelligent manner are no longer to be found (cough - Pottercast - cough).
October 12th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Glad to see you’re back!!
October 13th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Glad to see y’all back! You were missed, you know.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:24 am
Glad you’re back in business. Your site is an amazing resource for Harry Potter fans.