The Downtime

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Naggie
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The Downtime

Post by Naggie »

Hello again, people!

Apologies
First of all, I wish to extend my sincerest apologies for the recent downtime of this great community. I wish I could blame a glitch, the software, a corrupt database or something. But I can't. The fault lies entirely on me. As I believe I wrote on the temporary site, the system broke down on me after some updates. I had left some old add-ons in the files and the new software gave me some trouble over it. The style files (330 files in the new style, was even more in the old one) had some code snippets in them which I had not removed, and did not even remember I had added. Mind you, the skin was created a looong time ago and I've installed quite a few things since then.

Think of it as a car. When phpBB3 was soon to be released I started making a style for it. It's like a car getting a new body, new paint and such. After a while, I installed new rear-view mirrors, perhaps a decent antenna and such, and the core system (engine, exhaust and such) was updated once in a while. Some years passed, new additions and updates were made and things worked fine. But with the latest update, phpBB 3.0.6 the engine suddenly got too big for the body, and some other things made my rear-view mirrors not work anymore and the wheels were ripping the body apart. That's when the server broke down.

To solve this, I basically needed to make a whole new car body from the default they give you from the factory, without any cool additions. This has taken me a while, which caused some of the delays on getting the site back up again. I have been quite busy this last few days, and all spare time has gone to fixing the server and the style. I can honestly say that I've lost a lot of sleep over this :) And at the time of writing this at 2 in the morning, I have a lecture that starts in 6 hours and I better get to bed soon ;)

But now the skin exists again, in a slightly new version. I have tried to keep it as similar to the default skin as possible to avoid future collisions with updates. The main thing which you will notice is probably that the info about the poster in a thread is now located on the right side instead of left as it was before. My own ugly hack to move it to the left side was one of the collision points. There will also be lots more small differences which you will see after a while.

So what's changed?
Have I learnt something from this? Hell yeah!
I now have proper insight in which add-ons I have installed on the site. At the moment, there are three different ones in work. The biggest one, and one which I hope you will like, is the brand new portal page (http://www.asrai.org/portal.php ). The old one was a big monster to try and administrate, while this is made to work with the newest version of the software, and it is easy to update and add stuff and configure it just the way i want it. Another new add-on is the one you will see when trying to register. Instead of a CAPTCHA image (an image of some letters and numbers the user must submit to make sure he's not a bot) we now have a jQuery script which asks the user to move one specific object into a field by clicking and dragging with the mouse.

The Library of Educational Articles Feature (The LEAF) has also been one of the main headaches for this server error. The whole thing has now been removed in favour of a new system which is under development. I have focused on bringing the main site back up before putting too much time on that system. The LEAF is not gone, it is just hiding and will emerge in a new shape shortly. The same goes for the chatroom which may or may not come back. I hope to find a decent solution for it.

And as you may have guessed, I have gone from 4 skins to only 1. If I find the time for it, I may get the Slaanesh skin back. But since it was only 4 of our 4200 members who used it, I do not feel all that motivated at the time. I should probably try to focus on my upcoming exams instead so I can pay for another two years of Asrai.org happiness :)

I hope most of everything else is in place.

What about the avatars?
As with all computer crashes, not everything can be saved. But this time I think I actually managed to save most things. In fact, I have all the avatars on my machine, but when uploading them to the correct folder on the server, they still don't show up on the users. It is getting quite annoying, and the only easy solution is for all of you to upload it again. If you don't have your avatar image file on your computer, I can try to find it in that big pile of pictures I have on my computer if you can describe it for me. I owe you that, at least. So upload a new avatar or your old one again and enjoy the forum as much as possible.


I also want to inform you that there may still be some slight kinks in the skin, fields which may not have the green colour it is supposed to etc. If you find such a place and a refresh (F5) didn't help, let me know. The style files are many and often quite long. I may have missed that little code snippet on line 3825 of the css file during my late night code sessions :)

If you have questions, comments or just want to take a swing at me, this is the thread!

Nagathi
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Salamander
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Salamander »

Thank you alot for having spend the time on this Naggie...

Its truely awsome! :)
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Djo
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Djo »

We only want to thank you Naggie for this great site and for brinking it back to us :D
i am sure you have spend a lot of time on this and you deserve many gongrats :nod:
all the best on your exams :)

:tear: this tear is a tear of happiness shed this morning as i have seen this beloved site restored :lol:
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Nevermore »

Bravo for the speed and thank you for the effort !
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Re: The Downtime

Post by quasihayley »

Thanks for your hard work getting the forum back online. And don't be so hard on yourself, these things happen and you turned things around really quickly. Thanks again.
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Re: The Downtime

Post by The Virgin Forest »

Yeah Nag. You're the greatest! :D

And your cuddly wuddly avatar is just soooo kawaii :sexy:

BTW: Just noticed that all my attached pics in the meadow of arts have been lost. Will they be restored, or will I have to dig through my trash can to find them :)
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Naggie »

The Virgin Forest wrote:BTW: Just noticed that all my attached pics in the meadow of arts have been lost. Will they be restored, or will I have to dig through my trash can to find them :)
I fear they have gone the same way as the avatars. I have them uploaded into the attachements folder. But the site doesn't really connect the right image to the right post, and there's a bit too many for me to do manually...

~ Naggie
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Ayna
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Ayna »

I can't express how happy I am too see this great site working again!! Naggie, congrats on this achievement. They way you
handled it is fantastic and don't blame yourself too much for the down time. Things happen and I don't blame you at all!
Many thanks for all of this!! Two thumbs up, you're the best!! :thumbsup: :nod: :thumbsup:
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Re: The Downtime

Post by t12161991 »

Thanks Nagsie!

Your car metaphors are unfortunate. I found a deer with the front end of mine this morning...
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Vahn
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Vahn »

You've done a great work Nag!
Thanks for bringing my favourite forum back to life :D
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Deepwood »

well done Naggie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Re: The Downtime

Post by lune »

Thank you very much for your hard effort, though bringing asrai back to life so fast makes me fear for your exams. Don't be so harsh to yourself - we're only humans and as thus doing mistakes.
I believe we're all happy asrai is back to life and no one can have a grudge over the break-down; you're not much involved into the hobby anymore and still keep this great place alive - mostly alone.

Thank you very much (again :D ) and good luck for your exams!
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Vivandrel »

I feel so dirty... I had to flee to my Druchii.net account in terror when I discovered Asrai.org was no longer here!

Thanks Nag, for sorting everything out in a timely manner and for keeping us updated during the Great Downtime Pyre!
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Finbulvetr »

For what you explain, looks like you've done some hard, long and tedious work with the site, and to that, the only thing I can say is: Thanks for your efforts!!
What you've done here sounds like magic to me (I normally threaten my PC with my fist to make it work...), and I'm glad you didn't get a double 1 :D
Thanks again,
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Re: The Downtime

Post by The King In the Woods »

Although my relative amount of activity on the site has decreased sharply in recent months, I'm still very happy to see that this one of a kind community is far from dead. :)
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Re: The Downtime

Post by steinerp »

Great job getting it all back up so quickly.
Thanks,
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Re: The Downtime

Post by neoinarien »

Well done to get things going back so quickly.

This is why you make the big bucks. :cool:
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Tuhis »

Great work bringing the site back!

I noticed something strange, and I don't recall you saying anything about this, though I'm not sure. Anyway, when I try to edit my signature in the UCP I get the following message: "You are not authorised to define a signature." I can see my signature in my posts before the crash (B.C.), but my new posts don't have it even if I choose the "attach a signature" in the reply options.
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Naggie »

That's a bit odd. I tried editing your post and checking the box "Attach a signature". It seems to have worked. I also went over your preferences and made sure that your setting is right. I have no idea what may have been wrong. I wonder if my fiddling solved it...

~ Naggie
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Tuhis »

Yeah, now I can see the sig in my post and the option is on. But I unchecked the box just to test if I could now check it, and I can't. :roll: And i'm still not authorised to define my signature, so if I wished to change it, I'd need to ask you to do it.
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Re: The Downtime

Post by KidA »

Well, this is as good an opportunity as any other to give my new avatar a try. This new skin (usernames on the left) will take some time getting used to, but I'm very glad we have our favourite forum back. Well done, Naggie!
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Tuhis »

Did you do something Nag? Because I am now authorised to define my signature! :D I can also change the reply options. :thumbsup:
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Naggie »

The server database had a slight hiccup, and when it got back, a lot of settings were missing. I changed the ones I could find, and it probably fixed your issue too, Tuhis. However, it seems to have caused some other issues which I must try to solve...

~ Naggie
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Re: The Downtime

Post by Mist Walker »

It is good to have the site back online.

But there's no search function?
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Re: The Downtime

Post by ArchMagosAlchemys »

Yes there is (for me at least). I just used it!
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