Nokia Ovi crash results in three weeks of lost user data
There's definite risks to hosting all your personal data in the cloud, and users of Nokia's Contacts on Ovi service just got a taste of the dark side: a database crash yesterday erased all data entered since January 23rd, when the service superceded Nokia Chat. That means contacts and images simply disappeared from people's phones overnight with no recourse, which should give pause to all of us relying on third parties to manage and maintain our data. On the other hand, Ovi users now get to relive the past few weeks all over again, so maybe there's a silver lining in there for someone after all.
[Via Unwired View]
[Via Unwired View]























This is a free beta at the moment, right?
Doesn't matter. This is the same Nokia who want to become a internet/software/services company and yet they're already allowing things like this to happen?
Nokia's services are rubbish and aren't used by normal non-geeks. Stick to your hardware, Nokia, these shitty services of yours won't get you anywhere.
Yup, and if Engadget had bothered to link to the Beta labs blog they would have noticed that it doesn't wipe out any contacts you have stored on your phone or computer or in Nokia photos.
So uh, yeah.
http://betalabs.nokia.com/blog/2009/02/12/contacts-on-ovi-beta-database-failed-my-deepest-and-most-sincere-apologies/
@ILoveApple
The difference here is Nokia haven't marketed this as a production service. Two people work on it and the only data lost is superficial.
In the meantime Ovi as a whole is coming along really nicely and seamlessly integrates Nokia Music - which links in with WMP and iTunes for playlist transfer and content management - Nokia Photos - which holds a gallery of all your imaged media content and automatically converts any video file to a format supported by your phone in the resolution you choose - Nokia Software Update (which is OTA on later handsets too), Maploader and a good few other features.
To suggest that Nokia aren't making something pretty spectacular is just plain crazy.
@ILoveApple
After Apple's disastrous start with MobileMe, would you recommend the say thing to them?
And why should I trust my data to the Cloud ?
Pwned.
But trust you?!?!
Gotta rethink cloud computing again. This should remind google especially who seems to be the #1 jumping the wagon "offline" "web" that nothing is foolproof or crash/failure tolerant.
Same happened to me with Apple MobileMe when I cancelled the account. Local data was gone, on the Mac, and on the iPhone. I had a backup (TimeMachine). But the data was not included in the backup. And yes: MobileMe was NOT a beta then! Apple refused to help me and put me off referring to their terms and conditions. I'm not Apple customer any more since that day.
test
only trust your data to the cloud when you also have backup to local storage.
I guess that means don't trust your data solely to the cloud.
I know Live Mesh stores backups locally, not sure who else.
[link not related]
Well, at least it was just the chat data - your most popular contacts and the avatar image shouldn't be too hard to restore on your own. Better this than other stuff like Share On Ovi...
But this (and the recent outage of Magnolia) is a good reminder of the risks of cloud-only data storage...it's a bit like a plane crash. Problems thankfully don't occur often, but when they do, there are lots of casualties - while with local storage, there might be more individual problems, but at least it's completely in your hand to handle backups, and data loss doesn't affect thousands of users at a time...
was gonna start using Ovi when i got my n85 last week, glad i didn't. now that they got this bump out of the way, it looks like a good excuse to start!
Ovi overall is not affected - only the Contacts on Ovi (which is a beta chat service) chat logs and added friends list. The non-beta Ovi services all working and fine :-)
We will sleep late? Kinky...
Yes don't trust amateurs like apple who launched mobileme riddled with bugs and problems and apple couldn't care less about and refused to do anything about. At least Nokia have solved all their problems and acknowledged any other problems like true professionals.
Looks like it rained on the cloud...
I'm pissed if I lose my data. If *I* caused it it's my own damn fault and I learn (or not). If *you* caused it, I'm pissed and I want blood ESPECIALLY I'm paying you to be safer than me.
Thus we learn once again the perils of mainfra...er, the cloud, and perhaps start the swing back the other way.
Have you considered anger management? I'm guessing you're running Windows 7 on your pacemaker, expecting everything to be fine?
Just to clarify, if you stored contacts, calendar, notes, etc on ovi.com it wasn't affected. Only people who used the contacts on ovi (confusing naming, I know) chat service were affected.
don't look at me i'm shy!
"Cloud computing" is stupid.
Nokia really need to drop the turquoise and black colour scheme.
This is why I don't and never will trust my data on 'cloud' services
Beta or not, they couldn't go out and spend a few grand on a backup solution?
@MarkAnderson: Keep in mind that your idea of "superficial" data may in fact contain some important information for others. Don't be so flippant with other people's info!
It's a screw up but let's face facts:
1) It's a screw up affecting a pretty small number of people
2) Some chat logs are lost
3) Some profile changes, images and details are lost
4) Virtually all of this will have been backed up on the phone or on the user's computer.
It's small beans.
Not to mention, if you're going to put all your faith (i.e: Not keeping offline backups) in a BETA of a Cloud system, then you're not particularly clever at any rate.
Everyone is completely blowing this out of proportion. The only data that was lost was some buddy list entries for Nokia's IM app. It's not like it's exactly difficult to re-add any IM contacts you added in the last few weeks, especially since hardly anyone uses it (so it's difficult to find anyone to *add* to your buddy list).
Of course they are. Otherwise Engadget would have to report on trivia like the 5800's firmware v20 update which adds features its buyers wanted (yes folks, some mobile phone manufacturers do listen to their customers!) instead of exciting news like the iPhone possibly coming with a slightly different plastic backing.
Apparently, Backup Exec was too pie-in-the-sky for these cloud computing people.
missblingbling, she dirty
As a nokia user, i have no reason to want to try Ovi , i just dont see the point?
And where the hell was the daily database backup???