Unfortunately old server VM got deleted and all data, including automatic backups where lost. All users, posts and forum activity from last year got deleted. I am very sorry for this, it is a big problem. I did what I could to get back as much data as possible.
Unfortunately most recent local backup I had stored on my PC was from beginning of last year and I restored from there.
It is possible not everything is back to the old configuration. It was long time ago I initially setup this forum, over 5 years ago and I forgot all the details. If there is anything that you noticed missing that we could get back to normal, let me know, please, and I will try to get it back to it’s initial state.
Thanks for the update and for getting the server back up, @alexej996.
Could you share what measures you have put in place or plan to put in place to avoid such downtime and data loss in the future?
Note that archive.org does have snapshots of the forum, with the most recent being from March 29th of this year (1). It’s hardly complete, and many (but not all) posts linked from the main page were not archived, but it may be of at least some value and consolation for folks (especially frequent posters) to know there is at least some public record of their recent activity.
I definitely will keep more backups and have set up more reminders and notifications for all the VPS I administer. This is a very hard way to learn a lesson.
