Postmedia server problem highlighted by Sun and Province reporters on Twitter

What do Postmedia newsroom employees do when there's a nationwide server crash?

In Vancouver, it appears that they tweet the details to anyone with a Twitter account.

Around 4 p.m., Vancouver Sun Web editor Chris Parry blasted out the following message: "Let's centralize all publishing systems on 1 server, they said. What if there's a crash, we said. Never happen, they said."

Vancouver Sun reporter Andrea Woo then tweeted: "Nationwide server crash threatening publication of all our papers tomorrow. Good time for me to be on the other side of the planet, I'm told"

That prompted Province reporter Tamara Baluja to tweet in response: "What I want to know is how many readers would have noticed or cared if we didn't put out papers."

Just after 5 p.m. Baluja wrote that there was relief in the newsroom because the servers had come back on-line.

Woo stated: "Well that was anti-climactic"

Her colleague Derrick Penner disagreed, however, with the following tweet: "No, not anti-climatic. People still running around here dramatically."

Around 5:40, Baluja sent out another tweet saying, "Reporters still being told to write copy in email. Problems with server still exist although not on a full-scale disaster mode."

Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight.