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Tell HN: Heroku deleted my database with no warning

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Re: Tell HN: Heroku deleted my database with no warning

#61

Post by bryanrasmussen »

reading this I keep thinking the real questions are:

1. probably the notice sending and db deletion is two separate teams or responsibilities. Are they?

2. Did people know there was a bug in notice sending so some notices were not being sent, all notices not being sent? I ask this because generally in places I've worked where notice sending was an important part of things you knew if there was a bug and notices were not being sent. But maybe it wasn't that important for Heroku. Maybe it was not known that notices were not being sent for a while - or was it known immediately but things on other parts of business chugged along anyway.

3. If they knew notices were not being sent and they went ahead and deleted db anyway, seems messed up, but that would probably be ok with people if they had data retention for people who did not get notices sent.

4. The whole thing your stuff can be deleted at any time without telling you is basically probably true almost everywhere in that notice sending can have a bug and deletion of stuff is probably not adequately tied to notice sending so that if notice not sent automatic deletion is stopped. Which I'm thinking is probably everywhere - if you work somewhere with automatic deletion and a notice sending module - what happens? Is this scenario handled?

5. answer to this is probably not, but is there a legal issue if notices not sent and stuff deleted, issue might be if some notices were sent - if account A gets notice about deletion and is thus able to act on it and account B does not get notice and is thus not able to act on it there might be a ground for action. Probably not, but when something seems unfair there might be a law that can be stretched to fit it.

Re: Tell HN: Heroku deleted my database with no warning

#62

Post by MzHN »

We also had some of our free databases on our Team tier projects nuked, which Heroku said would instead be automatically upgraded to lowest paid tier. No warning emails either, to anyone on our team.

My personal account did get a bunch of warning emails but nothing on our business accounts.

Re: Tell HN: Heroku deleted my database with no warning

#63

Post by jacobsenscott »

throwawaykai wrote: post #21
ericpauley wrote: post #4

This whole debacle has been such short-term thinking from Salesforce. That after carrying these free projects for years they couldn't stomach more than 30d of data retention is just the icing on the cake. In my view this has caused yet further reputational harm for Heroku, and is going to have a long-term effect on the bottom line from paid projects. The value prop of Heroku has always been being able to sleep at nig…

Herokai here. Unfortunately we had no choice on the data retention front — once we’ve disconnected your database, we aren’t ALLOWED to hold your data for more than 30 days. That’s part of the data scrubbing protocol that we agree to when you sign up. We fought hard for 90+ days internally, but in the end couldn’t get over the issue that we’d be in violation of our contracts with customers.

If you enable daily backup those are nuked too?

Re: Tell HN: Heroku deleted my database with no warning

#64

Post by sneak »

Anything stored in a cloud provider you're not paying a minimum of $10k a month should be assumed to be subject to evaporation without recourse at any time.

Make offsite backups.

For this use case, a raspberry pi 4 with a 1TB SD card hidden somewhere in your home with a cronjob is probably more than enough.

Re: Tell HN: Heroku deleted my database with no warning

#65

Post by joemi »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #38
porpoisemonkey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't sound like this would have helped in this particular case since they were unable to contact the customer.

I was replying to a bullshit claim that they cannot retain for more than 30 days no matter what. That's hiding behind the T&Cs instead of owning their decision not to even try because there is nothing in it for them.

So you're in favor of companies breaking their terms and conditions at will? I think that would cause quite a lot more outrage and problems.

Re: Tell HN: Heroku deleted my database with no warning

#66

Post by Max-q »

codegeek wrote: post #17

"I learned my lesson about not doing an offsite backup regularly" Heroku is a shitshow after the Salesforce takeover and not to shit on you because I know it really sucks. BUT please everyone, do offsite backups and test them. Please people. Please. If you have anything that is important, BACK THEM UP on your own outside of the provider. Heck, we wrote our own script to backup RDS databases offsite as well even thoug…

After the Salesforce takeover? The one in 2010? So Heroku was good in like a year!?

Re: Tell HN: Heroku deleted my database with no warning

#68

Post by mytailorisrich »

joemi wrote: post #65
mytailorisrich wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was replying to a bullshit claim that they cannot retain for more than 30 days no matter what. That's hiding behind the T&Cs instead of owning their decision not to even try because there is nothing in it for them.

So you're in favor of companies breaking their terms and conditions at will? I think that would cause quite a lot more outrage and problems.

You did not read my comments, did you?

The T&Cs are an agreement between the parties. That agreement can be changed at any time if both parties agree. So they just need to ask.

Re: Tell HN: Heroku deleted my database with no warning

#69

Post by shortcake27 »

gwillen wrote: post #36
throwawaykai wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the new “eco” plan that was introduced alongside the ending of free plans — $5/mo for 1000 hours shared across all eco dynos.

I definitely wish you guys had advertised that earlier / better. I feel like I got lucky because I put off migrating until just before the sunset, at which point I discovered eco dynos. I swear they either didn't exist or were harder to find when the sunset was first announced. Thanks for making them available at all, though. (Context: I maintain an app for an event that runs about one week a year. The ability to use…

Wow, I also don’t recall seeing this either. It must have been marketed poorly. Same for Postgres, looks like there are now some more cost effective options which weren’t available when I migrated my stuff away.

Re: Tell HN: Heroku deleted my database with no warning

#70

Post by dns_snek »

marvinkennis wrote: post #12

Heroku sent me repeated messages that they would shut down my account due to inactivity. I was fine with that because finding and turning off the supposedly active Dyno was impossible. Guess what? Still charging me $27 a month for a server I can't even manage.

If this is true I think it deserves spotlight in a separate post.
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