Forum Software Update

[Hooligan]

Hello everyone!

I know I have been absent from the boards for many months now, but I hope to be spending more time with the group again. Over the next few days, the board will be up-and-down while I put some software updates in place. The hosting company will be upgrading the platform the forum resides on, so I need to act fast in order to keep any downtime to a minimum. So, if you visit and see an error, just check back.

Thanks to FZRDude for keeping you guys happy during my absence, whose help has been fantastic in keeping the board going.

[davemfox2]

Welcome back mate

Dave

[Hooligan]

Thanks Dave. It's good to be back.

[Hooligan]

Forum software update complete! Hopefully many of you weren't too inconvenienced by the upgrade. I am assuming it was mostly our friends on the other side of the world that might have hit the board while it was down for maintenance. Everything should be working well, but please post here if you come across an error. I had some SQL errors during the update process, but I think I got them with a completely clean install of the forum.I tested a few things without problems, but I won't have a chance to give it a complete rundown until tomorrow (it's 2:00 AM here now).

Some of you might have recently had some log-in problems a few weeks ago. The hosting company platform changes I mentioned were the cause of that. I hope that by updating the forum to the latest version will prevent that from happening again when the hosting company rolls out their changes. If the problem happens again I'll be sure to stay on top of it this time (thanks Tim).

Continuing with the updated software trend, I think this new version of phpBB has some updated features I might look into installing. We have had tons of problems in the past with spam and hotmail/gmail accounts, so getting that sorted will be first on the agenda.

[ThomVis]

Looks good, and welcome back!
(now go fix the forum logo ; )

[Hooligan]

Hi Thom, good to see you're still hanging around!

I will update the logo soon. I updated the forum software to the most recent release of phpBB 3.1 and from what I have it came with plenty of changes on the back-end from 3.0.xx versions. Two of the biggest changes that impact our board are the revisions to styles and extensions. It's one of the reasons that now pretty much everyone SHOULD be seeing the board in the default blue/light blue/white color scheme. I have also read that admins of larger forums running the 3.0.xx software may hold off on the update or be prepared to handle problems with moving lots of mods and/or custom board styles. Apparently 3.1 has gotten rid of some bloated code that it was using to serve up the site to ancient browsers that should have been ditched long ago.

[davemfox2]

This update certainly looks very good; it's a lot cleaner and clearer and precise.

Is there a spell checker with this version?

What other add ons have they got? Only curious as I'm a mod on another board using SMF..

Dave

[Hooligan]

Hi Dave,

I am pretty sure there is a spell-check function built into the "post reply" submission box. I think it might be dependent on language sets installed on the forum (we are running the default phpBB British English language pack). My errors are flagged on the fly with recommended spellings and auto-change when the word is complete if it is known to be wrong. I'll have to dig into further settings if you would like more specific info.

As far as add-ons, so far I think it is a bit slim. The old 2.0/3.0 software packs had tons of mods and styles available (check them out here: https://www.phpbb.com/customise/ and here: https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/modifications-1). The new 3.1 software apparently doesn't play so well with the old stuff so I think it will be awhile before we see developers revising their code to work with the new software. I'm sure the more popular mods will be updated to extensions first.

I am only slightly familiar with Simple Machines Forums, and mostly as a user. I am a member of only a small handful of sites that use that package. These days it seems like the largest forums or those with corporate owners/advertisers prefer to run vBulletin. When I moved this board over from the ancient ezboard site, I considered using SMF due to good reviews. However, the process of getting data from ezboard to SMF was more than complex. Tim and I also discussed vBulletin due to their support services, but the cost was prohibitive.

[YZFRob]

You were gone?

[spook]

Hi Hooli, all looks good Mate! Cheers,
Ralph

[ThomVis]

Hi Thom, good to see you're still hanging around!

From time to time.

Is there a spell checker with this version?

It's easier to have the Spell checker enabled in your browser.

As far as add-ons, so far I think it is a bit slim. The old 2.0/3.0 software packs had tons of mods and styles available

On the 3.0.x board I'm running I've kept the mods installer on 0, only some skins to supply some dark/light themes. I'm waiting a month or two before upgrading to 3.1.x, let them supply some skins for 3.1 first.....

[sickle44]

Noticed some issues with folk's avatars and my own being all squished at the top, other than that looks good.

[EXUPAdmin]

Just a quick update to this thread. I will be updating the forum software in the next day or two. I don't expect any delays or problems, but you never know. I will also be looking into a few other issues over the next few days to sort out any problems left unresolved.

I apologize for my gross negligence of the site and am trying my best to get some things back under control as I reintegrate into the community.

Thanks to FZRDude for keeping this place running smoothly in my absence.

Hooligan

[spook]

[sickle44]

All good Hooli,

Hey you haven't completely forgotten about is so thanks a million. I swear if I have to go facebook for help with my 27 year old motorcycle, I will just give up.

[davemfox2]

Dave

[EXUPAdmin]

Hello EXUPers,

Some updates regarding the site/forum that I have implemented in the past two days.

First off, the forum is now running the most current version of phpBB. We weren't completely in the stone age with the previous version, but it was a few minor updates past its prime. Everything appeared to go smoothly on my end but if you run into any strange problems or bugs, please post a description in this sub-forum so I can look into it.

Second, I have added a secure certificate to the exupworldwide.com domain to help with site security. I recommend visiting and logging into the site via the https:// prefix to help keep your personal data secure. I will be adding an htaccess file to automatically direct site visitors to the secure site soon so you should be able to skip this step entirely in the next day or so. We have had some spam problems in the past that have caused some issues with the board that I am trying to eliminate. This shouldn't pose a problem for 99.9% of our users, but if you're one of those people who just refuses to stop using Windows XP and an ancient version of Internet Explorer, you're SOL. Time waits for no man or machine (ironically I am typing this from an iMac that should have been recycled about 5 years ago).

A few more minor updates coming, but I need to get my notes in order. I'll keep everyone up to date with the progress.

Hooligan

[EXUPAdmin]

More boring news.

I have added the redirect file to the website so from this point on any site visit should result in viewing the secure version. You can verify the site is secure on a Mac by noting a small padlock icon in the address bar of both Safari and Firefox. Not sure what it is on a Windows machine but I assume it is similar. If you don't see it, try refreshing your browser or emptying your cache.

Some time ago we lost a ton of images and image links in two separate events. On was a direct attack on a directory (directories) within the forum. More specifically, the avatars. My web host caught the problem and systematically destroyed a substantial amount of infected files, then provided me with a long list of what was removed. At that time the most recent backup I had on my local drive was a bit out of date. I could technically recover some of the images but I decided not to reload the files in fear that I might just reintroduce the problem. This didn't appear to harm the overall "health" of the forum. I don't like to make assumptions, but based on the evidence I have it would appear that one of our users might have accidentally uploaded a file containing a virus to the board. I might have to turn off the avatar upload feature for now until I can look at other malware tools, but please make sure your virus protection software is up to date on any machine you use to upload to the site.

The second image loss appears to be a flurry of broken links to images hosted on third party solutions such as photobucket/flickr/picasaweb/etc. This one I need to look into further as I don't really know what I can do to restore links to broken or defunct image hosting sites (I think Spook might have a possible connection to someone who found a fix). We aren't the only site to be hit by this problem as I have noticed broken image links on a number of other forums I visit. Unfortunately many of these sites tend to exist and function in an infinite state of flux until it is either sold or shuttered, leaving users and their files/links "in the breeze." Normally I would recommend hosting your images on one of the more stable providers, but I really have no idea these days who that is. I personally have used Flickr for years with no problems, but even that provider has changed over time and is likely no more secure than the next big thing. Perhaps a cloud storage solution such as Google Drive or Microsoft's OneDrive is an option, but it would need to allow a linkable sharing feature. I can look into this for those who are interested.

More to follow?

[davemfox2]

Looking good

Dave

[ThomVis]

The second image loss appears to be a flurry of broken links to images hosted on third party solutions such as photobucket/flickr/picasaweb/etc.

ImageTitan being the one who is still standing.