CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » This site

Now it can be told...

(31 posts)

No tags yet.


12

  1. chdot
    Admin

    'We' have got a bit too used to 'server errors' over the last few months.

    'Obvious answer' was to move server, especially when things got worse and it became impossible to register new users!!!

    But.

    One problem is that since CCE started, the software (bbPress) has become 'just' a plug-in of WordPress. That may have to be dealt with in the future.

    Several CCEers have been offering advice and looking at alternative hosting and also forum software.

    For now the software remains the same but the server changed late last night - facilitated by chrisfl. Probably fewer 'server errors' but also opportunities for small improvements - particularly the registration of new members! The last ISP changed their version of php which (somehow or other) disabled various bits of CCE. New server has 'better' version of php (or people that understand things better!)

    One consequence was that the simple 'are you a robot' test didn't defeat some overnight Chinese spammers, who seem to have moved on from trainers and jewelry to wedding stuff.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  2. kaputnik
    Moderator

    does the quote tag function work yet?

    (answer - no!)

    In other news. Hurrah!

    Posted 9 years ago #

  3. Roibeard
    Member

    Yay for Chris^2 - your (pl) efforts are much appreciated!

    Robert

    Posted 9 years ago #

  4. chdot
    Admin

    Might be able to sort now (or remove?)

    Posted 9 years ago #

  5. SRD
    Moderator

    yay!

    Posted 9 years ago #

  6. twinspark
    Member

    Brilliant!

    On the Spamming Front I thought they were going to be posts on Wedding wear also suitable for cycling - perhaps the bridal train was "bungeeable" to a rear rack!

    Posted 9 years ago #

  7. steveo
    Member

    Excellent news.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  8. DaveC
    Member

    Many thanks chdot. This forum you started has become the place to (virtually) meet and (actually) waste time for losts of cyclists from many places throughout Scotland and beyond. Thanks for keeping it going and deciding it was worth upgrades to software.

    Dave C

    Posted 9 years ago #

  9. chdot
    Admin

    Thanks (all).

    "deciding it was worth upgrades to software"

    Ironically the actual software hasn't been updated as much as it might have.

    If BBP had been a WP plug-in 5 years ago, that is probably what what would have been used.

    But CCE is 'stuck' with 'legacy' software.

    As long as it keeps working (most of the time) I'm OK about that.

    Other software/forums/appearance available...

    http://citycyclingglasgow.com

    Posted 9 years ago #

  10. tammytroot
    Member

    Adding my thanks as well.
    As to the "legacy" software, I really like the way CCE looks on screen, much nicer than most other online fora.
    (I find CCG a bit of a pig to find the topics I'm interested in TBH).

    Posted 9 years ago #

  11. Darkerside
    Member

    You're not alone in finding CCG a pain to navigate. I've got a tweak that would add in the CCE "all current topics" to the homepage, but haven't yet got round to sorting.

    CCG isn't helped by its admin spending much more time over here than there...!

    Posted 9 years ago #

  12. Greenroofer
    Member

    +1 for thanks to chdot for keeping this whole thing going.

    +1 also to keeping the 'legacy' software. I like the way this forum looks. I don't need animated smileys and odd profile pictures to help me read the important and not-so-important stuff that features on here.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  13. chdot
    Admin

    "I don't need animated smileys"

    There was a discussion about smileys.

    I ignored it.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  14. chdot
    Admin

    I tried one of those word cloud things.

    That wasn't popular.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  15. chrisfl
    Member

    Thanks, for those interested in some of the technical details, I made the DNS name switch yesterday morning, and as everything looked well, there was a very short outage around midnight last night when I transferred the database over to my hosting.

    The actual site is now living on my Virtual machines, hosted in York by Bytemark.

    It is interesting to see that there was a definite small load increase on my servers when the site switched over :)

    On the software side, I did look at trying an import into the Wordpress based bbpress2 that failed completely. But I might try that again now the database is local.

    I've also tried a small import into a discourse instance, that did work. To me discourse seems to be the best bulletin board software around at the moment.

    But there is no rush to change anything, and when bbpress1 bitrot does finally set in, then hopefully we can find a good alternative/way forward.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  16. Morningsider
    Member

    chdot - thanks for keeping the show on the road.

    chrisfl - I sort of lost what you were saying just after "thanks" - but thank you too.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  17. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @ch(risfl&dot)

    Well done, thanks. I shall pass the technical stuff on to Madame IWRATS for translation.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  18. chdot
    Admin

    He said 'it's now on a different computer, different software available'.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  19. chdot
    Admin

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System

    Posted 9 years ago #

  20. fimm
    Member

    Ah, that explains the spam.
    Thank you for all your hard work in keeping the forum going.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  21. dougal
    Member

    I hope there are irregularly scheduled breakages just so we know it's the same CCE we know and love?

    Posted 9 years ago #

  22. Kenny
    Member

    @chrisfl - I did the full upgrade (on my web server in Germany) of CCE to bbpress2, although it took significant effort to get it to work. I wasn't aware others were involved in duplicating that effort. If you are interested in seeing it, or knowing how to do it, let me know, but it is likely a waste of your time if there is little interest in moving to it.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  23. steveo
    Member

    I hope there are irregularly scheduled breakages just so we know it's the same CCE we know and love?

    and get some work done.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  24. chrisfl
    Member

    @Kenny I didn't get it any further than, hitting the import button and seeing it fail, swearing at php and Wordpress and then moving on to trying a discourse import that worked!

    I'm happy to leave the software decision to chdot and the community overall. But good to know that you have it working if needed.

    For everyone else, don't worry irregularly scheduled breakages are inevitable!

    Posted 9 years ago #

  25. cb
    Member

    Is this a good place to mention the menu bar at the top of the page: either side of the 'Cycle Journey Planner', there is a space, the top half of which seems to be a link to the Cycle Journey Planner.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  26. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Ha!

    Error 503 Service Unavailable
    Service Unavailable
    Guru Meditation:
    XID: 1426629116
    ________________________________________
    Varnish cache server

    Posted 9 years ago #

  27. dougal
    Member

    Guru Meditation eh? That takes me back. I assume there aren't actual Amigas running the back-end here so some other piece of software has purloined the term. A bit of research reveals it's Varnish that has appropriated the term; much more fun than Blue Screen of Death IMO.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  28. Kenny
    Member

    Had the same error for numerous hours this evening. Ironically, Varnish is supposed to make web sites fly... yet their own web site is painfully slow to load.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  29. Darkerside
    Member

    Good old 503. Makes me feel at home.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  30. chrisfl
    Member

    eeek, backend webserver ran out of memory. Making some adjustments, so hopefully we won't be seeing it too often in the future.

    <techincal stuff>
    Varnish isn't actually that much use on a dynamic site like this, as it just passes most of php requests straight through to the webserver, overall half the requests are served from the in memory cache. I also use it for load sharing, to a second server, but that is offline at the moment as I'm testing out some config changes on it :(
    </techincal>

    Apologies.

    Posted 9 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

12

Reply »

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin