The list server here at SQLServerCentral.com has a few quirks, one of which is that it doesn't run as a service. During the upgrade to the latest version the services applet part blew up and I gave up after a few hours trying to get it to work. Part of that is our own fault since we didn't renew our service agreement since the $5000 a year it costs isn't worth it when we haven't called in years.

And of course now I wish we'd renewed it.

Of course, for $5000 you'd think I could check a few things. and usually I do, but this weekend was the exception.

Every once in awhile the DNS cache seems to go haywire and I get a bunch of people telling me the newsletter didn't arrive. That happened on Friday and when I checked those accounts I found a DNS error was being reported. So I shut down Lyris and rebooted the server. Now since the services don't start, I open a command prompt and run Lyris through terminal services. I then disconnect and if I need to restart it or check it, I term serv in and check the status. That also means that when the server reboots I need to log in and start the service.

So I rebooted Sunday and then got busy wiht Mother's Day, mostly helping my wife to enjoy a horse day, and forgot to log in. So I went to check the status of the DD newsletter Sun night and found Lyris wasn't running. A quick smack on the head before I logged in, started the server and sent the newsletter before heading back to dinner. However this was about 6:00pm and it takes about 6 or 7 hours to send the newsletter. With the main newsletter scheduled for 9pm, I knew  they'd conflict. Sure enough when I checked this morning most of the SSC newsletter was backed up.

So we had a DR event, most caused by my mistakes, but that's a valid DR event with the send failing to go off as intended. Since I haven't figured out a way to get an alert for the newsletter not going out, I'm not sure what to do at this point other than post a large sticky on my monitor. [:D]