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So, I'm taking a three-step approach at fixing this.
Step 1: Appulous is about to get pulled offline for maintenance. In that time, I'll be running a script I wrote to check every single link we have in our system (upwards of 25,000) to see if it's dead or alive. All the dead links will be removed. I can't say for sure how long this process will take, but expect two hours. (Yes, yes, I know I said I couldn't take the time to write this .. but I was getting really sick of the dead links)
Step 2: Deny any Rapidshare, Sendspace, or Megaupload submissions. This step is actually already finished. Before you start whining and screaming that I'm blocking your favorite site that you have a paid account to, please realize that these sites have scripts to automatically remove any link that gets posted to Appulous within just a few hours. There are a few rare exceptions, but I expect to have maybe only 20 links from these domains once the Link Massacre is over. We just can't afford to have people post links that I'm going to have to find and remove three hours later.
Step 3: Screw up the autodeletion scripts. Obviously I can't share my plans here as that would give Rapidshare and the other sites a head start, but if all goes well I'll be able to re-enable rapidshare etc. submissions without them being taken down so quickly. This will most likely be added in Appulous V2 rather than bothering with writing something complex into a version of the site I hope to have replaced soon.
But here's the clincher:
We're going to lose a LOT of apps from our database when I do this. We won't technically be "losing" anything since none of the links for those apps work anyway, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if we dropped down to HALF of what we had before.
So here's how it's going to work:
Once the massacre is done, I'll be posting a list of all the apps that got deleted, and all the apps that we've lost the latest version for. And it's going to be up to YOU (yes, you!) to help resupply them! You can upload apps to any site listed on the domains page (will be unavailable during the massacre), but as usual, we at Hackulo.us recommend appscene.org for direct downloads.
Wish me luck! I'm going to start up the killing machine soon >:D
UPDATE 08JAN2009, 7:10am GMT: Remember when I said to expect 2 hours? lol just kidding. We keep getting blackballed -- I've had to move the entire database to two other servers so far, reconfigure them to be able to RUN appulous, and rewriting parts of appulous to be more compatible with other servers. I've changed my detection engine twice because I keep getting blocked. I went from being able to do 50 links at a time to 10, and now 5. This is going to get done if it kills me! It looks like we have some more hours of downtime ahead of us, though. But just to give you an idea -- for every 10 links I check, anywhere between 0-2 of them are still active. O_O
UPDATE 08JAN2009, 9:20am GMT: Over two hours later and we're still rolling. One of the cool parts about how my script works is that I can make changes to it as it's running, because it continuously reloads itself on every pass. Using that, I think I've programmed an automated solution for every single error it can run into. We've been running smooth at a little faster than an app a second, with the occasional problems and interruptions automatically repaired. We're down to 9,800 links and still have more to go!
I can feel myself falling asleep, so I'm going to set my alarm for when this should be done and finish the last steps of the process. Thanks for sticking with me, everyone
Now we just need to get the bandwidth problem solved so the site gets fast again!UPDATE 08JAN2009, 4:44pm GMT: The worst of it is finally done! The database has been polled and taken down to (*gulp*) 3318 links and 1674 applications. We lost 1541 total apps and lost the latest version for 435 apps. Well, I shouldn't say "lost", really, since they were ALREADY gone.. it's just that we've cleaned them out.
We got some incorrect hits with depositfiles links, so I'm working on reintegrating those links from a backup, having those re-checked, and seeing where it takes me. We're not ready to come back online quiiite yet, but we're on the home stretch
UPDATE 08JAN2009, 7:08pm GMT: Done! Since I've had to move the database around to so many different computers to do this, I just need to sync all the changes back to the Appulous server and then open it back up. I'll make a BRAND NEW ANNOUNCEMENT when this is finished, and this thread will be locked to avoid future confusion.
Unfortunately the datacenter STILL has not solved our ridiculously-low-bandwidth-cap problem, so expect Appulous to be running extremely slowly when it opens back up. Hopefully this will be fixed soon! Until then, please be patient
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