The Powder Toy

2008 Server Crash

  • FoxFries404     29th Dec 2025 Member 1 Permalink

    For those who aren't aware, back in 2008 TPT had a server crash that wiped all of the saves. As far as I know, nothing similar has happened since. However, I wanted to know. Is there any chance this or something similar could happen again? Is there any form of protection against this, such as a backup server? With all of the progress TPT has made since 2008, I am very concerned.

  • Sylvi     29th Dec 2025 Moderator 0 Permalink
    @FoxFries404 (View Post)
    The crash was later than 2008, but that was due to Skylark moving onto other priorities in life.

    That is very unlikely to happen again since the current team is staffed multiple people (instead of just one person). The server is backed up regularly as far as I can tell. In regards to the saves "lost" they weren't lost and are currently hosted on a replica server by @jacksonmj (https://powdertoythings.co.uk/OldPowder/)
    Edited once by Sylvi. Last: 29th Dec 2025
  • pacmanfan123     1st January Member 0 Permalink

    @Sylvi (View Post), Is there at least 1 lost save after the crash? Also, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

  • LogikDOS     5th February Member 0 Permalink

    @Sylvi do you know what happend with the versions before 3 and why meaby that 2008 myth became a thing

  • Sylvi     5th February Moderator 0 Permalink
    @LogikDOS (View Post)
    There were no version numbers back then. They were not numbered initially for a while and there was no such thing as an actual one numbered as version 3.

    Probably because most people who play the game now weren't around to know exactly what happened at the time and did not get impacted by the server shutdown.
    Edited once by Sylvi. Last: 5th February
  • jacob1     5th February Developer 0 Permalink
    I've never had a clear picture in my head in how the server transitioned. Everything was lost sure, but that might not have been unintentional. Skylark may have intentionally shut down the servers. At some point either before or after this, he set up a transition plan with Simon, and Simon created a new server from scratch.
  • Sylvi     5th February Moderator 0 Permalink
    @jacob1 (View Post)
    It was a slow decay of service. Things just started to fail (slow connection, unreliable opening of saves) and one day *boop* couldn't connect. As far as I'm aware Simon reached out to Skylark for the game's source code after the whole thing shutdown and created a new server from scratch because he was aware of the game being licensed under GPLv3

    I was there for the whole slow decay and shutdown. Then also a bit after the start of here (when Conversations and official moderation didn't initially exist on this server either), at some point I did learn how this setup started. Forgot the context of how I got that story from Simon
    Edited once by Sylvi. Last: 5th February
  • jacob1     6th February Developer 0 Permalink
    @Sylvi (View Post)
    I see, cool insights into an ancient time. You had a lot more opportunity to ask Simon things like that than I did.
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