Forum Software Update pending - February 2020

[extrememarine]

phpBB release 3.3 Proteus was released January 6th and available now for upgrades / installs.

I will be working through a dbase backup and then software upgrade over the next week or so as time permits.

Should I fubar something and need to activate the 'phone-a-friend' support system, members may experience some periods of forum non-availability. Should that happen, I do apologize and hopefully any unplanned outage will be short. I'm certain that most employers will enjoy some unexpected productivity spikes, but my goal is to avoid those completely by minimizing forum downtime.

Finger's crossed!

Wayne

[Tyler]

Thanks for all you do, Wayne...

[extrememarine]

Gee, thanks darling!

Thanks for all you do, Wayne...

[wheatonFJR]

Wayne, im counting on you to keep the motor runnin'. There is a whole internet out there to save.

[extrememarine]

FYI - forum software upgrade underway this evening. Running backups and uploading required files. There may be some periods of non-availability later this evening.

Wayne

[DesignFlaw06]

Something went terribly wrong with the software update on Thursday evening. Based on our initial assessment, the phpBB 'Threadcrapper" quota threshold was exceeded. Another contributing factor was a PM send event where a single user (who shall not be named) sent a single PM to over 1100 members of the board. We are establishing a beta / sandbox to test updates and PM message sending thresholds in. Thank you for your patients during the brief outage on Friday; We're certain that productivity gains experienced by your employers were significant.

- the management.

[gixxerjasen]

We're certain that productivity gains experienced by your employers were significant.

They were indeed.

[CollingsBob]

Wayne....Thankyou.

[jwilly]

We need to restrict the forum and block IP's coming out of Illinois, especially Central Illinois...

[FJRoss]

Very happy to see things back! Thank you.
I am a member of a forum that essentially lost everything after a cyber attack. Although they restarted, all history was gone and the place hasn't really been the same since. I was a little bit concerned we might be in the same boat.

Let the sheep shagging begin again!

[raYzerman]

TimDog and The Marine studied the problem carefully and finally got it figured out!

[Red]

.
. . . It's ALIVE, it's alive! . . .

Glad you got things going again.
Thanks, from the peanut gallery.
.

[Tyler]

Another contributing factor was a PM send event where a single user (who shall not be named) sent a single PM to over 1100 members of the board.

It wasn't me... i swear... I'm sad I wasn't one of the 1100... feeling so left out... and while I could take a guess as to who it was, it probably wasn't... (cough. cough, wheaton)... :

[Tyler]

Never mind.

[extrememarine]

Beta testing an IP geo-tagging plugin now...

We need to restrict the forum and block IP's coming out of Illinois, especially Central Illinois...

Definition of geolocation: IP-based Geolocation is mapping an IP address to the real-world geographic location of an Internet-connected computer or mobile device. Geo-location involves mapping individual IP addresses to country, region (city), latitude/longitude, ISP, and domain name, among other useful things.

[Bounce]

You mentioned a PM to the world issue. I've noticed that on one forum (don't know if it was here) that has a field that is populated by default to "everyone". If, like me (once a while back), you end up in visual "overload" of all the options you might think it's like a facebook "privacy" setting. I set it trying to set my TO and "privacy" - it ended up going to the world by mistake. I don't think it was me mentioned in the login header though because that was a while ago.

[Bust]

The Board is down for scheduled maintenance. Please check back after Bust has finished with all the sheep.

Bet that's the last time you some bitches use me as an excuse to fix shit!

[gixxerjasen]

I don't think it was me mentioned in the login header though because that was a while ago.

So, interesting thing though...when the forum was down, I had a persistent notification of one Mr. Bounce liking one of my posts but I obviously couldn't open said post, or clear the notification. When the forum came up, that notification was completely gone. Seems Mr Bounce was one of the last ones acting on the forum.

I kid! I mean, yes the annoying notification was there and now it's gone, likely due to some data loss after the last backup I presume.

I am a member of a forum that essentially lost everything after a cyber attack. Although they restarted, all history was gone and the place hasn't really been the same since. I was a little bit concerned we might be in the same boat.

Similar. One of the moderator/admins got wind that the owner of the forum was tired of it and was just going to let his account and the domain expire without any notice. He hijacked the forum and took control of the account and domain name. He brought himself before the group as the savior of the forum. There was some dispute over this so he released a notice of new location, and reopened the forum under a new domain. Then he started charging for all sorts of things and opening other similar forums. I presume there was more dispute behind the scenes because a bit later there was a big crash of the forum and well, the backup was corrupt, so we lost everything, content, usernames, etc. Oddly the other new forums did not suffer any of this. During this time he'd also launched on the same platform a motorcycle news publication. It all stunk so I walked away. He's a freaking crook and I'm glad we don't have to deal with that kind of BS over here.

[gixxerjasen]

The Board is down for scheduled maintenance. Please check back after Bust has finished with all the sheep.

Bet that's the last time you some bitches use me as an excuse to fix shit!

It most certainly wasn't the first time, and it likely won't be the last time.

[NTXFJR]

<edited>

Thanks Attack the Road team for what you do here!