Data Stores Data Loss Issue

p0s_0 · January 15, 2019, 3:02am

Thanks for letting us know about this data loss issue, even though I don’t even have any players that would play my game, it’s still something I would worry about.

olivier_primeau · January 15, 2019, 4:12am

Thank you! was worried my coding was causing it… ahah

c0mmandhat · January 15, 2019, 6:56am

On the other hand, I see this as a great reason to learn HTTPService. Not only can you send a backup copy of save data to your own database and restore it when Roblox’s datastores come back, you can do several interesting things such as:

Copy model and union data to an external server; a really good upside for when you want to use Roblox as a quick modelling service
Let fans make (filtered, obviously) Twitter posts, which for expensive paid games, can work like quick reviews to draw in those who are on the fence; just link the twitter to the social links so people see it
Interact with other HTTP based services, including RESTful APIs.

Those of you not in the know, if you download a client for a program that works through the internet, it’s probably communicating with the service through a RESTful API. These are HTTP based and incredibly simple to use, needing little more knowledge then requesting a webpage and processing the response. Some are more complex than others – for example, you can’t stream to Twitch because HTTPService doesn’t keep connections open – but you can send a chat message through a bot account.

Of course, it goes without saying that any HTTPService stuff like this should probably be kept in ServerStorage, but it opens more possibilities then most people think.

Akyuma · January 15, 2019, 2:17pm

That usually means they’ll have to learn a new language along with data management, HTTP/S protocols & security, and most importantly, it costs money (if you want a good host that is). The only time I see it being entirely free is using glitch & sqlite3 but you’d still have to learn the basics of sql & nodejs to make it yourself.
You could also use a free mongodb cluster but then again, you still have to learn it’s API. Its a difficult learning curve for most people because of all the technicalities and the severe consequences if you’re not secure about the information or correct about the data structures.

TonalTurtle · January 15, 2019, 7:16pm

It’s a huge relief to know this issue is being looked at.

Elttob · January 15, 2019, 9:26pm

Or, you know, just use something like DataStore2

catgirlin_space · January 15, 2019, 9:31pm

I doubt DataStore2 could do much in this case. Seems like an issue with Data Stores themselves.

berezaa · January 16, 2019, 12:36am

Just received a ton of reports of Data loss in Vesteria in the past hour

vCaffy · January 16, 2019, 12:57am

Multiple players in my game just had their data reset when teleporting from place to place.

NicholasY4815 · January 16, 2019, 1:40am

Yes, like Dog2puppy said, this issue is more in general of DataStore data loss and not single instances. DataStore2 may be able to prevent it in some cases but if both the main DataStore and the backup DataStore (I believe this is how DataStore2 works) lose data for the same people then there’s nothing you can do much about it.

Alkan · January 16, 2019, 1:48am

Have you tried awarding players a badge after they’ve earned x experience, and checking to see if they own the badge when fetching their data? The way I understand the problem is you save over their datastore table thinking they are brand new when they are not. This would help detect when the service is lying to you about a user’s data not existing.

General_Punctuation · January 16, 2019, 2:30am

Thank you very much. Players are losing their scoresin my game.

berezaa · January 16, 2019, 3:57am

What a problem we have to do deal with.

Unfortunately my game allows people to have multiple save slots, so I cannot use this method. Using the DataStore2 method though I should be able to check for the timestamp of the last save, or at least a timestamp. If I find something that isn’t 0 I’ll make it error.

Elttob · January 16, 2019, 7:01am

Okay, I was under the impression that some individual key read/writes were failing rather than the entire thing. Thanks!

Kullaske · January 16, 2019, 7:28am

Thank you for the information, I’ve been logging when the datastores in my new game on my own webserver encase this happens to my game.

Magicboopoo · January 16, 2019, 7:43am

Thank you for addressing this issue.

Seranok · January 16, 2019, 10:19pm

Yesterday at 5 PM PST we released a fix for this issue. We confirmed with several top developers that they are not seeing further data loss.

Now that the immediate issue is resolved, we are working on a remediation plan in order to help developers restore lost data. We will provide more information in the next day or two once the plan is finalized.

We will also be posting a full incident report explaining how this occurred and what we are doing to prevent future incidents.

Thank you for your patience as we deal with this issue.

buildthomas · January 16, 2019, 10:45pm

A post was merged into an existing topic: Meme posts

Rocky28447 · January 16, 2019, 10:55pm

I think I speak for everyone here when I say I love how transparent Roblox has been lately when incidents like this occur. Making sure everyone, including developers, stays informed is a policy I could get used to.

Chemiclast · January 16, 2019, 10:57pm

Cool, data loss is fixed! Thank you team for fixing this, and thanks for telling us! This recent transparency is pretty nice.