Forum Upgrade

[vangogh]

Hey All,

I upgraded the forum software earlier tonight. I ran into a few small problems, but think I fixed everything. Hopefully I did fix everything and no one will notice anything different, however if you notice something not working let me know.

Thanks.

[Harold Mansfield]

I haven't seen any glitches. All looks fine where I sit.

[Harold Mansfield]

I take that back. The "like" function is gone. Was that on purpose?

[vangogh]

No it wasn't on purpose. vBulletin seems to think it's ok to make changes like that for you when you upgrade. Hopefully it's just a setting I can find that was turned off, but who knows. Maybe they decided we no longer want it. Can you tell I'm not a fan of vBulletin?

[Harold Mansfield]

Preaching to the choir. I still think it's the best forum software out there, but it is ridiculously complicated to administer.

[vangogh]

Yeah. I don't think the developers behind it care. When I read through the forums, people ask questions about something not working and whoever responds usually blames it on the person who asked the question or someone else that avoids their own responsibility.

It looks like the Like button was part of vBSEO mod that no longer works and I had to disable. I found another mod that does some of the same things. I installed it mainly for the URLs. Otherwise we'd be back to the things like ?post=64573. I've been searching for mods in between writing this and I found one by the same company.I think it will import our old Likes so all the counts will be the same. It's also possible we're starting again from scratch with the counts.

I'll add the mod in a bit and see if we have Likes or some way to say thanks with a button click.

[vangogh]

I added it and for a moment saw something below our avatars that mentioned Likes/Thanks. Unfortunately it didn't show or do anything else so I turned that part off. I never did see a button that would let us Like/Thank anything. When I have more time I'll work on it. I'm guessing I need to add a line of code to a file somewhere, but I don't have time at the moment to figure our what line of code and which file.

Hopefully later today.

[Freelancier]

When I click on the link to go to the last posting, I get a redirect to Domain Name Registration and Web Hosting | Domain.com (http://www.domain.com).

[vangogh]

Which link are you clicking? It just happened to me on one thread, but others are working fine. We should get 404 errors though and not something that points to domain.com.

[Freelancier]

Any thread with more than one page. Click on page 2, it'll fail. Go into page 1 (that works!) and then click on Last, it'll fail. Click on the last post link in the forum list and it'll fail.

[vangogh]

I see what you mean. I may have to get rid of the nice looking URLs for a time until I can figure this out. I really dislike vBulletin. I wish I had gone with something else when we launched. There are always problems after an upgrade and it often takes me days, even weeks to fix.

[vangogh]

I did make progress on the Like. It's not a button, but there's a link below the post (on the left). I liked posts for both of you so you could see. Could either of you like something I wrote here so I can see what happens and how things display.

I think I need to pay for a pro version of the mod to move the like link somewhere else.

[vangogh]

I turned off the nice URLs until I can figure this out. You should be able to see beyond page one now, though we're stuck with the awful looking URLs until I do.

[Freelancier]

I see the thread now (obviously :). Interesting that it's subsequent pages of the pretty links that are weird.

The LIKE link has a caching issue. When I created this post, the LIKE for the post above it was gone. Then I refreshed the page and it came back.

[vangogh]

Strange. I think I have the likes working again, other than the now less obvious way to like a post. I was able to import all the likes we had given and received, assuming the numbers you see are correct. I have no idea if they are or aren't.

Now to see if I can figure out the URL problem. I do want to get the nice URLs back.

[Harold Mansfield]

I just got 454 notifications, so it must be back :)

[vangogh]

I managed to import the Likes from the old mod to the new one. I think other than the new way to like a post, I think it's back. Now I'm working on the URLs. I think it's because I haven't completely removed all the files for the old mod. I may be changing the URLs back and forth while I do. If you click to page 2 of something and it doesn't work, you'll know why.

You know this was exactly how I wanted to spend my Saturday. :)

[Harold Mansfield]

Well, whatever you're doing is working. The forum is much more responsive and loading a lot faster.

[Freelancier]

You know this was exactly how I wanted to spend my Saturday.Too cold out. No football on. What was your plan anyway??

[vangogh]

I think I fixed the URLs. Let me know if you can't access something, but I know I'm seeing page 2 of this thread with the nicer looking URLs.

[vangogh]

Sadly my plan was to work on my taxes so I can't honestly say I'd be having a better time.

[vangogh]

The forum is much more responsive and loading a lot faster.

I noticed that too. I wonder if the old mod was slowing it down. It's possible. Support stopped for it a couple of years ago. It's also possible something is now off that should be on.

[Harold Mansfield]

I noticed that too. I wonder if the old mod was slowing it down. It's possible. Support stopped for it a couple of years ago. It's also possible something is now off that should be on.


Some other things are fixed too. Like the error messages that used to show at the top of the screen when you spam or delete a post. It's all smooth now. Like butter.

[vangogh]

That's good. I did turn off the CMS that we never use. Maybe that was slowing things down and causing some problems.

[Owen]

Xenforo ladies and gentlemen. IP.Board is great too! :D

[vangogh]

I've looked at them. At the moment, don't expect anything to change, though. It's a lot of work to move this forum to new software and since no one will be paying me to do the work, it'll wait until I have some free time. I have no idea when that will be.

[Owen]

I've looked at them. At the moment, don't expect anything to change, though. It's a lot of work to move this forum to new software and since no one will be paying me to do the work, it'll wait until I have some free time. I have no idea when that will be.

Just get someone on here that knows what they're doing with that type of software to do it.

Like me ;)

Or someone else, I'm sure someone trusted knows a thing or two.

[vangogh]

I don't need to find someone to do it. I am a web designer and developer. Despite not liking vBulletin as software, it works well enough and there's not enough to justify the work or expense in changing to new software. If the time comes where I can justify the investment, I will.

[Owen]

I don't need to find someone to do it. I am a web designer and developer. Despite not liking vBulletin as software, it works well enough and there's not enough to justify the work or expense in changing to new software. If the time comes where I can justify the investment, I will.

Don't they have free vBulletin to Xenforo conversion plugins? o.O

[vangogh]

There's a lot more to switching software than running a conversion plugin. First I'd have to install Xenforo, test it, and have select members here test it. I don't mean test for an hour either. Assuming we all agreed that switching made sense, I'd then have to learn Xenforo, configure it, make any theme/template changes, etc. Then all the data from here would need to be moved and converted. Then we'd all test again to find all the things that are broken, fix them, and probably test more.

I'm not saying it's a year of work, but it's hardly trivial. You also have to consider this forum isn't my primary business. Besides administrating the place, it's something I work on in my spare time.

Changing the software behind the forum isn't something anyone should be holding their breath waiting for.

[Harold Mansfield]

Then all the data from here would need to be moved and converted. Then we'd all test again to find all the things that are broken, fix them, and probably test more.

And that part is a real b*tch. I don't care how many suggestions you hear about how to make it easier, the truth is that nothing on the web is perfect and most things aren't compatible since everyone is trying to be the standard, instead of working together.

Not only that, but Xenforo is 4 years old. When you've been around the web long enough you realize how easy it is for the "hot new thing" to one day run out of money and cease to exist at a moments notice. It happens all the time. And then people are stuck with a software or platform that they are totally reliant on yet isn't supported by anyone any more. Then what?

This has happened quite a few times with forum software companies over the years.

It may or may not be a great forum software at the moment, but there are more things to take into consideration when making business decisions than what is hot at the moment. You need to take the entire picture into account, not just what you think will be cool.

[Owen]

There's a lot more to switching software than running a conversion plugin. First I'd have to install Xenforo, test it, and have select members here test it. I don't mean test for an hour either. Assuming we all agreed that switching made sense, I'd then have to learn Xenforo, configure it, make any theme/template changes, etc. Then all the data from here would need to be moved and converted. Then we'd all test again to find all the things that are broken, fix them, and probably test more.

I'm not saying it's a year of work, but it's hardly trivial. You also have to consider this forum isn't my primary business. Besides administrating the place, it's something I work on in my spare time.

Changing the software behind the forum isn't something anyone should be holding their breath waiting for.

Aww. I'd love to help test it, really. I've done something like this before except it was phpBB to Xenforo, and it took us a month of testing and everything. I was the only developer though so it took longer. My job at the end was to show the site owner the basics of Xenforo and I did the complicated work.

[Brian Altenhofel]

A month is a very short time for migrating and testing any platform that is driven by user-generated content.

For a forum that I run with moderate traffic (~3M views/month, ~1K concurrent logged-in users, ~2.5K concurrent users overall, ~240 requests/second during peak times... on a web server with 1GB of RAM and DB server with 1GB of RAM, by the way), we figured there would be ~300 hours of actual labor (or about $60K if it was all me) and a minimum beta period of 6-9 months to move to a different platform. The beta period would facilitate a zero downtime transition with users opting in to using the new platform. The new platform would have to be set up to read from and write to the old platform with the old platform being used as the system of record.

We are actually considering a move to a new platform, but only because I need a reasonably-sized forum to get valuable real-world testing of a forum framework that my business is currently developing. So for me, those 300 hours mentioned above could really end up being rolled into QA costs.

[vangogh]

the truth is that nothing on the web is perfect

Ain't that the truth. How many times have you scheduled several hours to do something that only takes a minute or two just to be prepared for all the things that will go wrong?


I'd love to help test it

I'm sure you would and if there comes a time when I do move this place to new software I know where to find you. Just don't expect it to happen any time soon.


A month is a very short time for migrating and testing any platform that is driven by user-generated content.


Also true. I'm not really sure how long it would take to move this forum. I suspect it would mostly depend on my free time. I don't think it would take 6+ months, but that's mainly because this place isn't anyone's primary business. Worst case if we go down is people can't post and after awhile stop coming back. Certainly not things any of us wants to happen, but no one is going to lose their business because of it. I wouldn't have to be as perfect with the work. It would still take considerable time.

Just making backups of everything is more than I have time for at the moment.

[billbenson]

Other than slow response time at times and an occasional down time, I don't see a reason to move. That is not going to drive away your regulars.

I have noticed that over the last 6 months or so, some regulars have quit posting. I wonder why? Like 3 or so.

[Owen]

Other than slow response time at times and an occasional down time, I don't see a reason to move. That is not going to drive away your regulars.

I have noticed that over the last 6 months or so, some regulars have quit posting. I wonder why? Like 3 or so.

I'm not leaving, I couldn't care less about a switch right now. I have set a person goal to hit 1,000 posts here, so I think I'm gonna try and reach that goal regardless of what forum script is being used.

[Business Attorney]

I have noticed that over the last 6 months or so, some regulars have quit posting. I wonder why? Like 3 or so.

If that includes me, I have been very busy with both business and personal affairs. Lack of time, not lack of interest. Things have lightened up a bit, but chances are my posts will be shorter and fewer for a while still.

[MyITGuy]

If that includes me, I have been very busy with both business and personal affairs. Lack of time, not lack of interest. Things have lightened up a bit, but chances are my posts will be shorter and fewer for a while still.

Ditto! Just got back from a two week vacation and will be catching up on things that need attention for the next few weeks ;)

[Brian Altenhofel]

Ditto! Just got back from a two week vacation and will be catching up on things that need attention for the next few weeks ;)

What's a "vacation"?

[turboguy]

What's a "vacation"?

That is something that people who work for you do.

Personally I just think a day off sometime in the next few months would be great. Since it is Sunday, I did allow myself a 10 minute break. Since I will be working until 8 or 9 tonight I might be generous to myself and take one more.

[billbenson]

What's a "vacation"?

Thanksgiving day :p

[Freelancier]

Thanksgiving day :pSo you're saying you don't cook.

[MyITGuy]

What's a "vacation"?

Something that was long overdue...for years I haven't had the opportunity to do anything more than a 3-4 day weekend getaway at most. After getting married last year and spending a week in Costa Rica, I've made it a resolution to get away more often.

This year we spent 5 nights in Las Vega, drove route 66 to LA for two nights, drove the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco for two nights, then back to Las Vegas for two more nights before returning to Miami.

[billbenson]

So you're saying you don't cook.

I frequently use some holiday to visit family in CA. If we are home for Thanksgivng, I don't like traditional Thanksgiviving food and sweet potatos are one of my barf foods. My wife makes a great chili relleno though. That's Latin festival food.


Something that was long overdue...for years I haven't had the opportunity to do anything more than a 3-4 day weekend getaway at most. After getting married last year and spending a week in Costa Rica, I've made it a resolution to get away more often.

This year we spent 5 nights in Las Vega, drove route 66 to LA for two nights, drove the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco for two nights, then back to Las Vegas for two more nights before returning to Miami.

Costa Rica is nice and very set up for tourists. Remember that was part of my sales terretory for more than a decade. You can always find someone that speaks English. Panama is really the only other safe country in Central America.these days.

If you are just going to go to an all inclusive hotel, you can pretty much go anywhere.But you are trapped to the hotel complex. The real issue is crime and if the people are pleasant. There are a ton of beautiful places. Some of them have pleasent people a lot don't.

I don't like the cruise ship concept. Number one, there have been a lot of incidents of people getting sick with no escape. I would rather go to one place and see what it has to offer. But then again, I've been everwhere in that territory and know where I want to go.

My favorite honeymoon island is Bonaire. It's a small dive island. Really safe. Great beaches aad economical.

If I were to go on vacation, I'd go to the Dominican Republic. Very 3rd world and you pretty much need to speak some Spanish. In the right places the people are really nice, food is great, beaches are beautiful.I used to stay in a motel 6 sort of hotel for 30 bucks a night; a block from the beach; fishing boats came in at 5 am every morning to supply the resteraunts.

[turboguy]

Something that was long overdue...for years I haven't had the opportunity to do anything more than a 3-4 day weekend getaway at most. After getting married last year and spending a week in Costa Rica, I've made it a resolution to get away more often.



Marriage really sucks doesn't it. You have to miss work to waste time taking vacations and all that useless stuff. It's hard to work much more than 10 to 12 hours a day without her complaining and once in a while you can't even work Saturdays and Sundays.

I do often miss the old days when I could work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. Then of course sometimes you have to take the holidays off. Nothing like when I was single. I can remember in my single days one of my best Thanksgivings. I worked 18 hours and had a can of Spaghetti-O's for dinner.