Pre-catastrophe NVidia forum crumbs

[costiq]

Some pages from the NVidia old forums (2013-2019) can be accessed here:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://fo ... force.com/

Sample:
http://web.archive.org/web/201707090630 ... dx11-game/

[ToThePoint]

I thought someone a few months back confirmed with bo3b that he'd managed to archive pratically the entire content history from the original NVidia forum. Is that not the case, or was that actually you that spoke to him about that, and I'm just not recalling it correctly?

[costiq]

I thought someone a few months back confirmed with bo3b that he'd managed to archive pratically the entire content history from the original NVidia forum. Is that not the case, or was that actually you that spoke to him about that, and I'm just not recalling it correctly?

Sorry, it wasn't me.
I just remembered about this archiving website and was hoping to find more content from the old forum.
The archived pages contain also visuals not only text but, unfortunately, only 2-3 pages/day are saved. Crumbs...

[ToThePoint]

Sorry, it wasn't me.
I just remembered about this archiving website and was hoping to find more content from the old forum.
The archived pages contain also visuals not only text but, unfortunately, only 2-3 pages/day are saved. Crumbs...

That's alright. At least you're thinking about it, and salvaging something's definitely better than nothing. I could have sworn someone confirmed with bo3b that they'd captured the whole kit and kaboodal and that it was all available if requested, and I mentioned to bo3b half jokingly, that the host of MTBS3D might kindly consider housing all of the old threads from the original forum, otherwise I would never have mentioned it to him in the first place. Oh well, I'm hoping that bo3b actually remembers who told him that, because I sure can't.

[ToThePoint]

@ costiq Found it. The thread is in the following link, and was posted pre-catastrophe by Lacuna for bo3b's reference. I just checked out one of the files Lacuna archived, namely the one for the NVidia 3D Vision forum. Just select 'Latest' on the OP's post, and then Lucuna's links are about two months back from there.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/fo ... uncement-/

Once decompressed, all the files are in alphabetical order, so it's a little hard to guess as to just how recent the files are, but it's a fair guess that it was most probably up to and including the date when the archiving took place, which was on the 10.07.2019. So basically it's all still there, and bo3b also copied all of the files to his own website, just for good measure. I just couldn't quite recall all of this off-hand. So no worries, disaster has been averted.

It would just be nice to have it all loaded up on here one day.

[DJ-RK]

Ok, so with the archives and backups that we have, do we have any way of reliably searching through them to find specific posts or content within them, either through keywords or using post #'s/URL's from old bookmarks?

As some of you know, I have quite the collection of bookmarks from the old site, many of which I need to reference while making fixes, and as many of you probably know the new site just links you to the beginning of any thread and is just completely useless.

If this is currently doable, or will be achievable through means in the near future, would greatly appreciate if anyone could provide some instructions on how. As it stands, I've tried using the link in costiq's first post here to look up a couple URL's and it says that link isn't archived, but then if I remove the post # at the end it will take me to the beginning of the thread and therefore not any more useful to me (unless I'm not using it correctly).

[ToThePoint]

@ DJ-RK If you track down Lacuna's original post which I'd referenced, and which in turn provides the links to the archives that he created, I think you'll have better luck. Unzipping the 3DV archive for instance will list out all of the threads from A to Z. All of the individual threads appear to be complete and intact, as well as all of the links contained within them also remaining functional. I think at this stage, you'll just have to trawl through them as best you can to try and find the specific threads that you're looking for, but at least they should all be in there somewhere.

[ToThePoint]

@ DJ-RK A useful tip. Embedded entries such as log reports are initially whited out, but that issue can be remedied by hovering the mouse cursor over an embedded area and constantly pressing down on the left mouse button, whilst also scrolling down with the mouse wheel enabling all of the text within it to then be read.

[bo3bber]

We have lacuna's archive from before they destroyed the forums, but unfortunately it is also missing all the pictures and attachments. Better, but not a complete archive.

I don't think we can justify asking to host that archive here, because it's all Nvidia material, and we already know they are dicks. We can't ask mtbs to take on any potential legal issues.

However, if we figure out how to unpack it and host it properly, I would not mind running on my server, as long as people avoid posting about it. Using at a link archive to get at stuff like help pages, where we change all geforce.com/forum to bo3b.net but the actual address stays the same would beat hand fixing 1000s of links.

If you can, experiment with the archive and see how it might be runnable like that. I've already setup an archive this way for TriDef, but of course they are out of business and don't hate us, so there is no real legal risk there.

I don't know how the archive looks, the Tridef was easy because it was all php pages.

[ToThePoint]

Personally I'm really not all that fussed about the old threads being on here, but hopefully they might still be a useful resource. I'm just glad that I remembered where I'd seen these archives posted. Don't quite get what you meant about fixing 1000's of links. Granted, I only selected a few links but they worked, but maybe that's not what you meant. Well, given any potential legal complications, discretion naturally has to be the better part of valour, once again.

[Porlonus]

If you can, experiment with the archive and see how it might be runnable like that. I've already setup an archive this way for TriDef, but of course they are out of business and don't hate us, so there is no real legal risk there.

I don't know how the archive looks, the Tridef was easy because it was all php pages.

I did a quick search and a short try and found this: https://forum.httrack.com/readmsg/28981 ... index.html
Using WinHTTrack I took a rly small 1 page site, had to set up a few things to get it at least running (first try didn't copy anything, I believe the user agent was blocked too, etc.) But I managed to dl it in html format with all the pics, even a bit js etc. It probably would take a bit more to set up all the exclusions etc, a bit of trial and error seems necessary. Also it took half a min ... for 1 page. So idk how much the whole nvidia 3DV forum would take, or the size with all the pics & co.

Well, php+database I believe we can forgett - we won't get that from nvidia. So you can only copy each pages. It also seems development of that tool did halt. Maybe WebCopy, Offline Explorer, etc. do a better trick too. I'm not that experienced with web tools, never did copy an entire forum, and I don't have that much time. Just wanted to give some advise on that topic if someone wants to take a look.

[amorphis]

Ok, so with the archives and backups that we have, do we have any way of reliably searching through them to find specific posts or content within them, either through keywords or using post #'s/URL's from old bookmarks?

You can use a free tool called Docfetcher to index and search all the contents of html files.

https://www.softpedia.com/get/File-mana ... cher.shtml

[bo3bber]

Here is the address of the archive on my server if you guys want to experiment with it, and look into how it is setup.

http://bo3b.net/3DV-updated.7z