1. The host’s tech grabbed our server, not the one he was supposed to wipe, and was most of the way through wiping it when it was discovered.
2. The Admins had been paying for backups for 3-4 years – only to find out that the backup provider had gone belly-up 2 years prior BUT kept charging us. The same company had been collecting the yearly fees for the “ad-free” version for the same time, but apparently while the notifications would pop up that it was running out, the ad-free condition continued past the expiration date whether you paid or not, so the only ones that noticed were the ones that paid during the time the company was defunct, months too late to reverse charges.
3. We had to wait for the host to do a data recovery on our drives while the Admins threw up a “not ready for Alpha” bare bones of the site redesign that we had been working on with the intent of a 2009 release. And it was over a month later, 3 months for the actual members, and about 5-6 months to get the backups back, and realize that a LOT of the post headers were corrupted/incompatible with the new software, and or tech guys had to merge old and new accounts manually (including identifying which nameless “guest” was actually what registered poster).
4. Worse, later that year, there was a software edition change with the new forum software.
The reason we were switching from software A to software B, was that A and B had analogous free add-ons/extensions (totally different programs, but had similar effects). C (the new version of A) wasn’t going to have them, so we switched to B – only for them to announce that “D” (their new edition) was coming out and would limit those sort of 3rd party add-ons. So we ended up with “C” anyway (and by the time we transitioned back, people had written new equivalents of some (but not all) of the old add-ons for A).

In all, it was a 2-year nightmare.

Expect it Wednesday!

Also, “Screw the Humans, did the dog survive?” has been at the forefront since I saw “Old Yeller”.

THE DOG MADE IT!!!

I feel better now.