Data Recovery - Topics tab

The "Topics" tab allows the board administrator to regenerate the board topics page. The program will look at all of the existing topic directories and verify that these topics all appear on the topics page. Any topics that do not appear on the topics page will be added.

Symptoms of a corrupted top page include:

• Having topics on the top page, but not being able to access them through administration

• The "Tree View" lists only the board title

• Utility screens (New Message, Keyword Search) do not list the topics on the board

• An error message about the board-topics.html file having zero length or not existing is displayed when accessing various utilities

Before deciding that the topics page is corrupt, be sure that this is the case. Discus Pro contains an option in Options Manager to display only those topics you are permitted to read -- if you have not logged in to the board and all topics are read-restricted, no topics will show up. Also, any topics you've hidden through the properties icon in Topic Manager will not display. Regardless of your settings, all topics from the board topics page should appear in the Topic Manager interface.

There are two ways to recover the data from a corrupted top page: salvaging the page and regenerating the page.

• Salvaging the page

  Salvaging the page attempts to recover topic data from the top page, matching information from the page if it is not entirely lost. The salvage operation also attempts to recover your title message, top page settings, main message, and color scheme, minimizing the amount of work that you must do in the recovery. The salvage operation is also optimized for several corruption patterns that we have observed, including corruption introduced by Microsoft Front Page and Netscape Composer.

  However, salvaging the page is not always possible. Regenerating the page (see below) will always work, so it is in your best interest to attempt to salvage the page before going for the full regeneration. If salvaging fails, you can simply do the regeneration and you will be no worse off.

  To salvage the page, from the Data Recovery screen, make sure the "Salvage Operation" option is checked, and click the "Recover Topics Page" button. When the salvage operation is complete you will be returned to the Board Manager. You should at this point go to the board and see if the topics page looks normal. You should also verify that the title message and main message are filled in through the Appearance Appearance. Based on the success of the recovery, you may choose at this point to use the Board Manager to fill in the missing or incorrect sections (such as correcting the color scheme).

• Regenerating the page

  If the page salvage operation was unsuccessful for any reason, you can use the page regeneration function. This actually examines the directory structure of your board, adding each topic that is found to the top page. These topics will likely be out of order. In addition, the default color scheme, title message, and main message are all used, so these will need to be specified after restoring the page.

  To run the regeneration function, from the Data Recovery screen, check the "Full Regeneration" option, and click the "Recover Topics Page" button. This will add all topics that are found to the topics page. You then may need to use the Appearance Manager to change the color scheme, change the title message or main message, or reorder the topics.