Apologies for the non-functioning of the website. This is due to an overwrite of the users' preferences for every user on file.

I have tried to get my hosting company to restore an older database, but to no avail.

To fix the problem for now, do the following:

• Log on to your account.
• Go to the 'Preferences' tab at the top of the page.
  • Fill in the 'Map Preferences' section, and update them by pressing the update button.
  • Do the same for the 'NOTAM Filters' section
  • Repeat for the 'Flying Sites' and 'Email Settings' sections.
• Go to the 'Setup Maps & Feeds' tab at the top of the page.
  Set up your local map boundaries, and update it.

All should now be OK.

I am writing a fix to restore basic service. If you have not already changed your record as detailed above, this fix will create the basic records for each user. You will still need to alter your record as above, but at least the website will not crash around you.

N.B. The fix will set the country for each user to the UK, unless your email ends with a recognised country code eg .es, .de, .it etc, in which case it will set up the proper country. Your local map will be created in the centre of that country.

If my hosts wake up, the database may revert to an earlier version, in which case all should function as before the error occurred, albeit with a delay in obtaining the very latest NOTAMs.

I do not expect this to happen...

EDIT: The fix has now been applied.
If you did not alter your account as described above, you will need to do it now.

Added to the International Maps page is a map of the UK, with all the drone no-flying areas marked. This is the 'UK_Drones' map. The restricted areas are mostly around airports(Flight Restricted Zones') and associated runways('Runway Protection Zones'). Also on the map are the danger areas, which are also forbidden to UAVs without prior flying permission.

Apologies to those users who haven't been able to access the NOTAMs these last 10 days. While I was in far-off Nicaragua, the database was corrupted. I couldn't access my PC, so you had to wait for my return. The only suitable backup was taken on the 4th of April, so that's the one I've chosen. If you joined the site since then, you'll have to rejoin. If you've made any changes to your account since then, you'll have to redo them. Sorry about that... :0(

It turns out that there are a lot of non-deliverable emails being sent from this web site every day. I have just deleted no fewer than 1.1 million email failure messages, accumulated over 12 years. These messages caused the 'maximum number of files allowed' on the web site to be exceeded. This has caused a stop to all emails these last few days.

Today, I have no less than 5,000 failure messages. ie. There are 5,000 registered users asking for an email, but supplying an invalid address. This rate of failure will have caused many genuine emails not to be delivered.

Now that I'm aware of them, I'll keep a check on them. If your emails have not been delivered, you should check your email address on the database pronto.

At a minimum, these accounts will have their email turned off. I may delete the accounts completely. You have been warned...

The bots have been stopped. Hopefully, that may make the emails more consistent, since the website will no longer be sending them to the bots' fake accounts. The bots turned out to all Russian, apart from one Ukrainian.

The NOTAM export routine has been faulty for months. Unfortunately, nobody told me until yesterday, so it didn't get fixed. It now is fixed. There is a lesson here...

Problem number one: Lots of bots have been creating hundreds of fake accounts every day.

I have been deleting them, and I may have accidentally deleted some genuine accounts by mistake. Sorry for that. If this has happened to you, please re-register. There is now a 'Captcha' question to try and eliminate the bots. This will appear after you submit your account, and is a simple arithmetic question e.g. '7+6 ='.

Problem number two: This site was originally written for 1,000 users. There are now about 29,000 registered users. This has caused email problems. (My ISP has a daily email allowance, which the site does not exceed. However, they insist on dividing that allowance by 24 to get an allowance per hour). There are too many people wanting their emails at 6,7 or 8 in the morning, and some are going missing. This is, of course, not helped when several hundred bots are causing registration emails to be created.

I will be changing the times emails are delivered soon, to better spread them out over the day.