paccache -r got me about the same

I’m aware. The post was simply to get a recovery guide out there for a crappy situation.

100% my stack going forward. Thanks!

The server we were working at the time wasn’t configured with frequent backups, just a full backup once a month as a stop gap until the project got some proper funding. Any sort of remote version control is totally the preventative factor here, but my goal is to help others that have yet to learn that lesson.

As others pointed out, version control is probably the best fix for this in addition to traditional backups. My goal in this post was to help others that have yet to learn responsibility save their ass and maybe learn their lesson in a less pleasant way.

I’m not denying that stupid stuff didn’t happen nor that this wasn’t entirely preventable. There’s some practical reasons that are unique to large, slow moving orgs that explain why it wasn’t (yet) in version control.