Forum Fixes - An Update

[~Andrea~]

It seems I missed all the forum issues this Autumn! But it goes without saying thank you Hayley for keeping things up and running. I'm not as regular here as I could be but I love that this place is here when I need it.

 

Sorry to bring up something negative, but is anybody else finding the forum quite slow? I've also been having issues adding images to posts (via 'insert other media' and then 'insert image from URL'). The box to allow you to insert the URL just seems to never finish loading, and keeps spinning, no matter how long I wait.

Edited December 31, 2020 by ~Andrea~

[~Andrea~]

I'm going to try a different browser just in case.

 

Edit: Hmm no seems equally slow in Edge as it does in Chrome. The image issue is the same in both browsers too.

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by ~Andrea~

[Hayley]

On 09/12/2020 at 7:00 PM, Raven said:

 

Edge, as well.

 

I don't know if this is relevant to Firefox, but Chrome has recently stopped allowing downloads from https sites if the object being downloaded is from a http site/link.  At the moment I know this applies to executables, and I think it may also cover images, but from the beginning of next year it will apply to all content hosted in this way.  

 

This shouldn't be an issue for images hosted on this site, but if they are linked from another site that might be the issue (you can check this by right-clicking on the link, that will display the target address of the image and show whether it is on a http or https site).

 

Disclaimer: The above may be a massive red herring!

 

 

1 hour ago, ~Andrea~ said:

It seems I missed all the forum issues this Autumn! But it goes without saying thank you Hayley for keeping things up and running. I'm not as regular here as I could be but I love that this place is here when I need it.

 

Sorry to bring up something negative, but is anybody else finding the forum quite slow? I've also been having issues adding images to posts (via 'insert other media' and then 'insert image from URL'). The box to allow you to insert the URL just seems to never finish loading, and keeps spinning, no matter how long I wait.

 

Aha! This might have identified the issue! I never use a URL to insert images here, I save the images to my desktop and then just 'choose file', so I hadn't noticed a problem with URL's at all. One of the weird problems I haven't been able to work out is that, although links still work, embedding them doesn't. Raven's comment is making me wonder whether it's because we're running from an old version of the software. It would also explain why we can't use the 'at' symbol to link member's names at the moment. 

 

If it is that then I'm really happy about it, because it means there's nothing wrong in our code, we just need to update our software. 

 

Andrea, I'm sorry about the slow loading (and you really don't need to apologise!). It's not just you, it keeps happening periodically because the forum database is currently so stupidly enormous that our server freaks out occasionally. You did miss a lot with the technical issues! I've been told not to touch the databases, since I can't code, so I've been looking at moving us to be hosted by the people who made our software, so they can fix it.

 

Actually I do have a bit of an update on that front... as it's been a while since I heard from them I got in touch to find out whether we can go ahead with the move soon and was told that yes it should be possible. Unfortunately, because of how their customer service team works, I can't just make speak I to the same person more than once, which can get slightly confusing. Most of their team is away until the 3rd anyway though so on Sunday I'll send a message to the right team and tell them we'd like to go ahead with the move if it's possible now. This time though I'll just take it really slowly and get a specific time frame for the move from them before I let anything move from our current host. We should not have been offline for more than 24 hours before and this time I'm determined not to let it happen. If they can move us then the link issues and the slow loading should be fixed immediately, because they can fix anything that's awry in the code as well as updating us to the newest version. 

[Madeleine]

Yes I'm still finding it slow as well, although it's a bit better through chrome.

 

Thanks for all your hard work!

[Athena]

3 hours ago, ~Andrea~ said:

Sorry to bring up something negative, but is anybody else finding the forum quite slow? I've also been having issues adding images to posts (via 'insert other media' and then 'insert image from URL'). The box to allow you to insert the URL just seems to never finish loading, and keeps spinning, no matter how long I wait.

 

Hi Andrea! Good to see you again . Yes, the forum is sometimes slow for me too. I can't add an embedded URL or an image via the buttons either, it errors for me.

I only get my embedded URLs right if I copy them from another thread in which they are already good (from a while ago), or if I edit it in, in Html (which I realise not everyone can do) (rather I copy the code for an already embedded URL and edit that).

Yes, I think we are on an older version of the software and the issue(s) should hopefully be fixed once the update has been done.

 

1 hour ago, Hayley said:

Actually I do have a bit of an update on that front... as it's been a while since I heard from them I got in touch to find out whether we can go ahead with the move soon and was told that yes it should be possible. Unfortunately, because of how their customer service team works, I can't just make speak I to the same person more than once, which can get slightly confusing. Most of their team is away until the 3rd anyway though so on Sunday I'll send a message to the right team and tell them we'd like to go ahead with the move if it's possible now. This time though I'll just take it really slowly and get a specific time frame for the move from them before I let anything move from our current host. We should not have been offline for more than 24 hours before and this time I'm determined not to let it happen. If they can move us then the link issues and the slow loading should be fixed immediately, because they can fix anything that's awry in the code as well as updating us to the newest version. 

 

That sounds great! Fingers crossed for after the 3rd .

[~Andrea~]

Ah brilliant. It sounds like you wonderful people are all over this. Thanks both 

[Hayley]

Well we aren't back with the updated forum yet but it looks like there's going to be a bit of a wait (essentially the new hosts are trying to get a file from the old hosts and it's really become more complicated than it needed to be- I'm just waiting for someone to email me back about a possible solution) so I thought we may as well come back online while we're waiting! I'll be making some phone calls to try and get things moving as quickly as possible so do expect the site to go back offline soon, possibly tomorrow. 

[Raven]

Thanks for all your efforts with this, Hayley.

[Athena]

Thank you so much for all your work, Hayley!

 

(P.S. to respond to the announcement, my partner and I made the theme. I wasn't sure if you knew that, but if it is possible and not too much work to make it work with the new forum version, I'm sure he would help me to work it out, if you like. We love the theme but if you want to try something different by ie. downloading a free theme or such, then I don't want to stand in your way).

[Chrissy]

Thanks for all you're doing, Hayley. 

[Hayley]

Thank you all for being so patient! I'm really excited to get it done  

 

11 hours ago, Athena said:

(P.S. to respond to the announcement, my partner and I made the theme. I wasn't sure if you knew that, but if it is possible and not too much work to make it work with the new forum version, I'm sure he would help me to work it out, if you like. We love the theme but if you want to try something different by ie. downloading a free theme or such, then I don't want to stand in your way).

I did know that! And I love our theme. If it's possible to keep it that would be great (I was just assuming it wouldn't be possible!) but if it looks like it's going to be way too much work then please don't worry about it. I wasn't expecting to be able to keep it. Is there any extra information you need from me that you don't have access to already? 

[Athena]

12 hours ago, Hayley said:

I did know that! And I love our theme. If it's possible to keep it that would be great (I was just assuming it wouldn't be possible!) but if it looks like it's going to be way too much work then please don't worry about it. I wasn't expecting to be able to keep it. Is there any extra information you need from me that you don't have access to already? 

That's good to know, and thank you . It looks like I have AdminCP access, so that should be enough .

[willoyd]

Hi Hayley

Has the update gone through yet?  I was away for a few days, so never knew whether went offline or not. Just asking as there are one or two things that aren't sorted out yet, so wondered if that was because they were left over, or whether it's because we've not had an update yet.

[Hayley]

14 hours ago, willoyd said:

Hi Hayley

Has the update gone through yet?  I was away for a few days, so never knew whether went offline or not. Just asking as there are one or two things that aren't sorted out yet, so wondered if that was because they were left over, or whether it's because we've not had an update yet.

No it’s not done yet! We’re close though. I ended up going in circles for ages, essentially because our current hosts said they couldn’t give the new hosts a file they needed. So, after many very frustrating conversations, I reached out to a local company I’ve used before (not for the forum but for pc repairs) and they (to cut a very long story short) are going to help the new hosts get what they need. They did warn me that they’re very busy at the moment, so they’d have to fit it in between other things, but they’ve been working on our files behind the scenes for the last week now and, when I spoke to them a couple of days ago, said they are 90% done. 
 

I will post an update here, as well as on Twitter and patreon, when the actual server transfer happens. 

 

 

[willoyd]

Thank you!