Forum Maintenance

[Bowwowmeow]

Hi everyone! I will be taking the forum offline for some routine maintenance on Monday, January 1, 2007, at 2:00 in the afternoon, Pacific time. It will be off for several hours, probably. You will see a message to the effect if you try to log in while it is offline. :)

[AutomaticMan]

Nooooo! How will we cope! lol

[Bowwowmeow]

:D

[paul]

:faint:

[Bowwowmeow]

:comfort:

[Phoenix]

Monday, January 1, 2007, at 2:00 in the afternoon, Pacific time is probably about the time on Tuesday on this side of the international date line, that I was intending to visit.

What to do? :rubchin: :dizzy: :hbang:

[Bowwowmeow]

Well, since you folks down under are actually time-travelling into the past when you read my posts, its perfectly possible that by the time you get here, the chores will already be done. :dizzy: :confused: :D

[Bowwowmeow]

Four and 1/2 hours til closing, folks!

[1vegan]

I guess it's done by now, I like the "A Little Info About Our Profile" part :)

[Bowwowmeow]

Yes, it is for now, 1vegan, though I will be closing it again to upgrade to the latest version of Vbulletin software before the end of January.
Thanks! :)

[Fauxmage]

For a number of different reasons, I have recently made a few of our forums invisible to various groups of people. You can see which ones are no longer visible to guests by having a look at the main page before you log in. The "Fabulous Confabulations" forum is not visible to anyone who hasn't joined the Chin Waggers user group (which is open to all members), and the "There's Nobody Here But Us" forum has been invisible to non-members from the beginning. Recently, I have made a few more forums invisible to guests, people awaiting email confirmation, people on delayed posts, banned users, and people with 0 posts, in order to provide a more comfortable and private environment for some of our more personal topics. You can see which ones are no longer visible to these people, and to search engines, by visiting the forum as a "guest" (by not logging in). :)

[Bowwowmeow]

I've temporarily disabled registration again, until I can catch up with whammer deletion. I'm thinking of blocking their domains so that they can't keep registering. I've gotten a good idea of the top three used by these pests, and they aren't used by anyone else, so it should work.

[Bowwowmeow]

Sorry for the short notice, folks, but I'll be taking the forum offline at 5:00 PM Pacific time, in about 20 minutes, so that we can get our software upgraded. I've no idea how long this will take, but I'm sure we'll be back online sometime tomorrow. I need to contact tech support concerning when they can start and how long it will take, but for now, I think its safest to go offline in case of another hacking attempt.

[Fauxmage]

The forum's been upgraded. I'm checking for bugs. All our smilies were lost, and our avatars. I'll have to re upload them. Old smilies won't appear in the old posts anymore. :(

[Oracl]

I'm checking for bugs.
I'll let Ped know. :beanie:

[Charmagne]

BWM - I've been noticing that no matter what time or when I log in - the Users Online at the bottom of the Naked Vegan log-in page (first thing you see) - it always says Charmagne, Dreamer, and Gliondrach. Why won't it change - I know that right now you and Soynut, my3labs and myself are logged on for sure:confused:?

[Bowwowmeow]

Sorry I've taken so long to answer this - my computer is running very slowly right now.

That is odd. Do you see something different when you click on the "Currently Active Users" link?

I'm seeing myself, you, my3labs, and Soynut right now. If others are having the same problem, it could be a software bug, but if you are the only one, its a browser thing. Its never happened to me.

[Charmagne]

OK - now I am seeing the same thing as you. That really was weird because for the last two days I've seen the same 3 names everytime I log in - which is several times a day - and I always see others on-line besides those. I thought it was weird seeing Gliondrach 24 hrs a day. Oh well - computers!:rolleyes: Thank you.

OK - it is really strange - I didn't log out just used the back buttons to get back to the first page and again I saw the same three people.

[Bowwowmeow]

That'll happen when you use the back button, but refreshing the page ought to change what you see. We also have a setting that leaves people's usernames on line for an hour after their last activity, so they seem like they are here for longer than they are. I did that when I kept getting automatically logged out during the composition of a long, carefully thought out post before I could finish and post it. Its very frustrating! :o :bhead:

[Gliondrach]

I thought it was weird seeing Gliondrach 24 hrs a day.




Many people feel that way.

[Gliondrach]

I did that when I kept getting automatically logged out during the composition of a long, carefully thought out post before I could finish and post it. Its very frustrating! :o :bhead:[/SIZE][/FONT]


I always compose long posts in Notepad and then copy and paste them here.

[Charmagne]

I always compose long posts in Notepad and then copy and paste them here.

That's a good idea. I don't do long posts too often but I have lost them also by using the backup buttons.

[Oracl]

I always compose long posts in Notepad and then copy and paste them here.
I do the same thing. :agree:

[Bowwowmeow]

I installed a patch for our version of VBulletin, that's supposed to fix some problems they've discovered with the latest version. I did this all by myself, without any help, so let me know if you encounter any problems you haven't before. I never know what I am doing when I do these things. It did what it was supposed to do, though, so I believe I did it correctly. :curtsey: :bhead:

[Oracl]

....let me know if you encounter any problems you haven't before.
Will do! :agree:

[paul]

Will do and thanks for all the work you do.

[Gliondrach]

Well done!

[Fauxmage]

:D
Thank you.
:curtsey: :curtsey2:

[Bowwowmeow]

Well, as luck would have it, they have just made version 3.7.0 available, three days AFTER my license expired. :mad:

Over the next few days, I will renew the license, and get Tech Support to upgrade us to 3.7.0. which has a lot of very different features than what we have now. I will let you know as soon as I put the order in to Tech Support, because of course we will be offline while the upgrade is taking place, and for some time afterwards, as I check the usual functions that need checking after an upgrade.

[Gliondrach]

Righty-o.

[Oracl]

OK. :updn:

[Bowwowmeow]

We are back, and I think so far our problems are all fixed, except for as of right now, though we have the blog software back, the members' blogs are missing. i am hoping they can be found and restored.

As always, please let me know if you have any problems. i have not looked into the new profile settings and permissions, so experiment, and if anything seems weird, or you can't do something you think you should be able to do, lemme know so I can look into it! The new profile pages are what I upgraded for, and you can post visitor messages to each other, have photo albums, create detailed profiles with more info, make friends, etc.

Check the different skins, too, and see as you use them if any buttons are missing. I'm pretty sure everything should be functioning though.

[Oracl]

I was finally able to respond to your visitor message, BWM! :thumbsup:

[Bowwowmeow]

Hehe, yeah. Its been ages since the profiles went wonky. At least we aren't in the wormhole anymore.

Update on the blogs: They are telling me that they can't be retrieved. I hope that is not the case. I don't understand why they should be lost. We don't lose our regular posts on the forum when it gets upgraded. I may have to ask the VBulletin people if the web host people can't help me get them back.

[Oracl]

I just went into the Mod CP and checked out Ped and Seymour. There is no blog showing for either of them in the 'Blog' section of their profiles. :(

[Gliondrach]

Will have a look later.

[Phoenix]

I'm a bit pressed for time tonight but will have a good look tomorrow.

[Fauxmage]

I'll be taking the forum offline this week, probably on Thursday afternoon my time, to do a lot of maintenance that has piled up. Most of you are usually not on when I am in the afternoon here in California, so hopefully it won't impact you too much, but I've got lots of stuff to do that I haven't gotten around to since the upgrade, and it could take a long time.

[Gliondrach]

Righty-o. Thanks for the warning.

[Fauxmage]

Bad news. They've just announced the release of version 3.8.0. So here's another opportunity for an upgrade. Is anyone feeling lucky? ;)

[thevegantwins]

:dark: :crossfingers:

Upgrading is a frightening word for this form.

[Oracl]

:agree: :crossfingers:

[Fauxmage]

Well, I am not decided on the upgrade. I think they released 3.7 too soon, and refused to admit its instabilities, so I am dubious of 3.8, even though I have seen the beta version being used elsewhere. Now that, after seven months of having a broken forum, we have finally started to work properly, I do not want to rock the boat. But I may want one more upgrade before the license expires, because I won't be renewing it. The forum will stay online, of course, but I won't have access to upgrades and other services from VBulletin if I don't renew the license.

[Phoenix]

Bad news. They've just announced the release of version 3.8.0. So here's another opportunity for an upgrade. Is anyone feeling lucky? ;)

Not that lucky. :no: :no: :no:

[Gliondrach]

Let sleeping dogs lie as long as possible, that's what I say.

[Fauxmage]

I didn't bother with an upgrade this time. There was way too much other work for me to do.

[Oracl]

You've done a great job! :thumbsup:

[Bowwowmeow]

Thank you!

Some of the new features include social group discussions, private message filtering, private message quick reply, lightbox navigation, and thread prefix permissions. Additionally, Google AdSense integration has been added to allow you to monetize your site in minutes! See the announcement for a more detailed list.
I have a feeling that I will risk upgrading. The Private Message filtering sounds good. I don't know why they didn't develop that a long time ago.

[Bunny]

Thanks indeed :)

[Gliondrach]

It's good you're on the ball and ready to put in the work. :thumbsup:

[Fauxmage]

Thank you Tails. I don't like to do it. But its bad for the forum. You don't have to stop, just remember to do it in the right places.

[Fauxmage]

Well, there is a new version of the software out, intended to correct some bugs, so I guess I will be upgrading soon, but not before this weekend. I also need to have them do something about the blogs. I will let you know when the forum will be shut down.

[Fauxmage]

Our blog problems were fixed, and we are also upgraded to the latest version of the software. As always, let me know if you encounter any problems while using the forum, and welcome back!

[Gliondrach]

I was viewing the forum at about 1.35 am (just over 12 hours ago), and when I clicked on 'new posts' the following message came up. I couldn't get back to the index, either. Even doing a refresh brought up the same message.

------------------
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@thesaucyvegan.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

[Fauxmage]

I am going to take the forum offline to do a back up, prior to asking Tech Support to make one last attempt to retrieve our lost blogs. It needs to be offline for this, so that we do not lose posts made after the backup. I will most likely be doing this Saturday afternoon, Pacific time, which is tomorrow. It shouldn't take too long, and there will be no software upgrade.

[Gliondrach]

Righty-o.

[Fauxmage]

Actually, I'm not feeling too well today, so I think I will put this off for a bit.

[Gliondrach]

I hope you feel better soon.

[Fauxmage]

Thanks, I am finally feeling better. :)

[Fauxmage]

I'm going to go ahead and do this maintenance in the afternoon of Thursday the 25th, Pacific Time. Tomorrow for me, but today for some of you. We'll be offline for several hours at least.

[paul]

ok, hope all goes well.

[Gliondrach]

Good luck!

[Fauxmage]

Thank you! It worked too!!! :yea:

[Stormy]

Well done xxx :yea::thumbsup:

[Gliondrach]

:rock: :eat:

[Seymour]

My Mom found my old blog now, so I put it back. :catchase:

[Gliondrach]

I'll read it later when I have more time. It's bound to be good as cats are hep.