Tell HN: Heroku deleted my database with no warning

#1

Post by fireworks » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 5:44 PM UTC

Last December, Heroku nuked the database on one of my active projects. I was travelling at the end of the year and did not catch wind of this until I returned and saw messages about an issue with the app. Sure enough, I checked and noticed that the database was gone and detached on December 9th.

Before the hate comes out, yes I know Heroku deprecated free tiers. However, I did not understand this would affect my projects on paid dynos. The real issue here is that I never received a single email or notice of any kind to my email about this. From researching, it appears most people received SEVERAL notices about this. I did not think there was an issue with my setup because I received zero communication.

Upon reaching out, Heroku has told me that they cannot recover the database. They also admitted that there was "an issue" sending out notifications to me, and confirmed that none were sent.

So I guess just a warning to all - your database might be nuked at any time. I learned my lesson about not doing an offsite backup regularly. I guess the bigger lesson though is that Heroku should really be a last resort option for projects these days. RIP.

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

#2

Post by gwbas1c » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

What frustrated me about Heroku nuking free projects was that the paid version was, IMO, too expensive. (Granted, I understand that the free tier was probably a money sink for them.)

$5-10 a month is pocket change in some contexts, but for a hobby or a one-off project, it's a huge chunk of change.

I really wish they offered a lower-cost tier.

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

#3

Post by swader999 » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 6:38 PM UTC

I'm curious how this affected your projects on paid dynos, can you provide more details around that?

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

#4

Post by ericpauley » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

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 night, but clearly that's gone now.

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

#5

Post by fireworks » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 6:43 PM UTC

swader999 wrote: post #3

I'm curious how this affected your projects on paid dynos, can you provide more details around that?

So I did not realize this at first (would have helped if I were, you know, emailed some information about this), but my project was still using a free Postgres addon despite being on a paid dyno setup. So that I suppose was nuked along with the general free tier deprecation.

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

#6

Post by collectedparts » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 6:43 PM UTC

This happened to me as well: projects with paid dynos but free databases, databases got nuked.

How Heroku missed this is beyond me. They managed to screw over paying customers in their broad attempt to stop freeloaders.

These are good accounts with credit cards on file. Why not just autocovert me to the lowest tier paid database?

FWIW I was able to get them to restore my databases. But I also had free Heroku Redis on one my projects and that, they assured me, is gone forever.

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

#7

Post by sieabahlpark » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

collectedparts wrote: post #6

This happened to me as well: projects with paid dynos but free databases, databases got nuked. How Heroku missed this is beyond me. They managed to screw over paying customers in their broad attempt to stop freeloaders. These are good accounts with credit cards on file. Why not just autocovert me to the lowest tier paid database? FWIW I was able to get them to restore my databases. But I also had free Heroku Redis on…

Redis is a memory store, you're the one who fucked up treating a cache as a persistence layer.

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

#8

Post by cameronfraser » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

Same happened to me, I didn't receive any email notification or anything, found out when things started failing.

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

#9

Post by fireworks » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 6:53 PM UTC

collectedparts wrote: post #6

This happened to me as well: projects with paid dynos but free databases, databases got nuked. How Heroku missed this is beyond me. They managed to screw over paying customers in their broad attempt to stop freeloaders. These are good accounts with credit cards on file. Why not just autocovert me to the lowest tier paid database? FWIW I was able to get them to restore my databases. But I also had free Heroku Redis on…

Right? Like just charge me and tell me. Also, while I still think it is way too aggressive how they deprecated free in general, at the very least... maybe uh... I don't know, let me know if you are going to delete my database? Absolutely insane.

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

#10

Post by rovr138 » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

Well, I moved everything I had to a VPS for the time being because I left it to the end.

So I take this opportunity to ask, what alternatives have people moved to? I really haven't gone back to look what's out there.

Not looking for free, just alternatives to review.