A glitch in the Associated Student Government server over the summer caused updated files on student group Web sites to be reverted to their older versions.

The server went down for a few weeks before directions and links to how student groups could access their group Web sites were posted on ASG’s HereAndNow Web site, according to Adam Forsyth, ASG technology director.

Project Wildcat was immediately affected, because it could not post applications for its fall trip on its Web site.

“It definitely was an inconvenience,” said Charlotte Smith, a Project Wildcat counselor. “A lot of students called about applications, but (Forsyth) was really helpful.”

Although the server hosts most student group Web sites, “it appears that not that many groups were affected by the problems (relative to how many groups use that server),” said Forsyth, a Weinberg senior.

Forsyth’s comment is based on the number of student groups that contacted him and not the actual number of groups affected. Many student group webmasters had backup files on their personal computers, so they did not need to contact Forsyth.

“I couldn’t get anything to work. Then later on they posted a link on HereAndNow saying there were some problems,” said Piotr Lizak, the Polish-American Student Alliance’s webmaster. “Then I figured out I should probably check out what was wrong with the site again, and then it finally worked.”

It may be hard to recover some files, but it has not been an issue so far, explained Forsyth.

In order to recover files, the webmaster should know something about those files.

“He said you needed to know the name of the files, or kind of know, which is difficult when there’s so many different files,” said Nandita Batra, webmaster for Northwestern Community Development Corps and Willard Residential College.

Lizak had the files he wanted backed up on his computer, as did the majority of the other webmasters interviewed for this article.

“Nothing is lost,” said Forsyth. “So far, we have been able to recover all files (that were requested).”

Nevertheless, some are more disappointed by how the situation was handled.

“I was disappointed,” said Kate Solinger, OASIS’s co-president. “The notice (on HereAndNow) was posted a couple of weeks after it had happened, and nobody notified us directly.”

Other student groups agreed that having advance notice that the problem existed — before it was solved — would have been more reassuring, whether it came directly or through HereAndNow.

Forsyth explained that the files containing the most up-to-date contact information for student groups had been reverted to their older versions as well.

To prevent future incidents like this, updated files on the ASG server will now be saved weekly on a tape drive, and there will be weekly backups on the backup drive.

Reach Helena Oh at [email protected].