Sorry...

...but the forum is down indefinitely. The truth of the matter is that it may never return.

I've had nothing but trouble with this forum. I like using PHP based forum software. I don't like the ASP-based forums as they don't have the same features and functionality that make PHP ones such fun to use. Hence I put a lot of work into setting up a MySQL database and putting PHPBB on my webspace.

Enter the numpties at Fasthosts. In the first instance the version of PHP on the Windows servers was sooo out of date that it was causing memory leaks with PHPBB3 (which was written in and for PHP5). Fasthosts had no idea what was causing this and just kept moving my hosting to a test server with the threat that if it wasn't sorted in a week my webspace would be dumped. They were absolutely no help with this.

Then they decided to upgrade to PHP5 on the servers. Afte this all of my passwords for FTP, PHPBB and the control panel didn't work. At around the same time it would seem that a "malicious user" decided to start making an arse of my forum. Members were deleted, posts were removed and there was a general fuss. For someone to do this on a forum that has about four regular members is a little bit of overkill and basically sooooo petty that words fail me. Like thier little effort is going to make much difference.

After that, the database was emptied of al tables. I am not sure whether this was down to an error on fasthosts' part or something to do with the malicious user. Given that I reset all the forum and database passwords I find it hard to believe that the problem was down to hacking, especially as ALL of the database tables were wiped and not just the forum ones.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Fasthosts can't restore the database. I didn't make any personal backups of the database. Hence the database and the forum are gone. Given how much trouble it's been I'm not sure I can be bothered setting it all back up again for four users to post occasionally. The most likely result of all this is that I will get rid of the MySQL database and not bother with a forum from now on. My site has comments fields and contact forms anyway, so there is really no point in having a forum.

That said, I'd like to thank those who posted to the forum and kept it alive. If it comes back you'll be the first to know. Don't hold your breath though.

Dave.