Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Fury on April 27, 2006, 07:58:41 am
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We have forums maintenance scheduled for the next weekend (Friday-Sunday). We will be upgrading the forums to the latest available version (1.1 RC2), this will bring long-gone search back to everyone. Currently we have a copy of the forums running where we will be testing the upgrade and test any necessary changes, this should well prepare us for the real upgrade. Later today Grognards will be given access to the testing copy of the forums. Exact date and time of the forums maintenance depends on how soon and well we are able to make the testing copy "usable for the masses". However, it is very unlikely that we will have 1.1 compatible HLP theme finished by end of the week, the upgraded forums will most likely be running with default SMF 1.1 theme for a while until HLP theme for 1.1 is finished. Once the real forum upgrade begins, estimated downtime will be approximately 12 hours, if everything goes as planned.
We are also planning to upgrade MediaWiki, as it is badly outdated by now. Our goal is to have MediaWiki upgraded by end of the week, but it will again depend on how smoothly SMF upgrade goes. Also, HLP's BitTorrent tracker will most likely be removed as it has not been used at all. Instead, we will try alternative methods to provide hosted projects some download offering capability. Even though we do not have any monthly bandwidth limitations, we still have to worry about file downloads sucking the available total throughput, high as it may be.
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How in the monkey-****ing-Hell does it take you people half a day to upgrade a forum?
You can make the entire HLP theme on a 'test copy' board long before you even touch things here, and all you gotta do is upload the new SMF files, run one upgrade script and import the style from the other board.
That's like 30 minutes work tops.
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How in the monkey-****ing-Hell does it take you people half a day to upgrade a forum?
It takes 2,5 hours for the upgrader to upgrade the old SMF 1.0 database format to the new one. Then it takes ~6 hours for large version of the search index to be created. That alone takes over 8 hours. Its all due to the sheer amount of posts and threads you have spammed over the years.
Sandwich has not even begun working on new, 1.1 compatible version of the theme yet. With his current busy schedule, it will most likely take a while before he can even get started on it.
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That seems horrifically excessive to me.
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While you're at it, I suggest you kill these 403 ads.
EDIT: Particularly because they seem caught in an endless loading loop and thereby trying to use the browser's back button merely reloads the page I'm at.
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Is there a chance that this would also bring back the "jump to first unread post" feature as well?
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If this finally repairs the search function, it will be well worth it.
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Is there a chance that this would also bring back the "jump to first unread post" feature as well?
Click the blue 'new' icon, instead of the text link to a thread.
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At the moment it would seem like the forum upgrade will begin in 24 hours, approximately 8 AM (GMT+2) saturday morning. Grognards have not reported any bugs or problems, so far so good. an0n suggested we should have porn in the forums though, but that's kind of unlikely to happen. It has been confirmed that compatible HLP theme won't be finished by the time, so the forums will be using default SMF 1.1 theme until updated HLP theme is finished. Old VWBB lurkers will get some déja vu vibes, so be mentally prepared.
Also, our forums have multiple modifications installed which have allowed us to use features such as enhanced quick-reply box, small project avatars under names and custom bb codes. These won't be available at least initially, the main reason for this is that most of these modifications have not been updated to be 1.1 RC2 compatible. The modifications are very likely updated as soon as the final version of SMF 1.1 is released. Enhanced quick-reply box has been updated but probably won't be installed unless people really can't live without it.
You gain some, you lose some. I believe this is a viable tradeoff to get you the search back, as well as a number of other minor enhancements that probably won't be noticeable by regular forumites but well worth it.
If you are wondering why we are upgrading to 1.1 RC2 which is not yet final version and won't have good modification support, not to mention we haven't had the time to update the HLP theme. The most important reason is naturally the search, which has been gone long enough. And there has been no news as to when we can expect the final version of 1.1 to be released, could be days, weeks or months. Third reason is that we would have to upgrade the forums anyway, either to the latest 1.0.x or to the 1.1 RC2. Neither solution is perfect and would leave us without something quite useful, in the end 1.1 RC2 was chosen. We can only hope the majority of the forumites feel the same, but as always, it will be impossible to please everyone.
As for the GoogleAds problem mentioned above, to cut the long story short; Sandwich's Google AdSense account was suspended after Google caught HLP generating invalid clicks on the ads shown. This is most likely direct result of about 10 forumites going clicking-spree nearly two weeks ago. Their intentions were obviously good and nobody expected this to happen. Hopefully Sandwich can sort out the issue and get his account back.
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As for the GoogleAds problem mentioned above, to cut the long story short; Sandwich's Google AdSense account was suspended after Google caught HLP generating invalid clicks on the ads shown. This is most likely direct result of about 10 forumites going clicking-spree nearly two weeks ago. Their intentions were obviously good and nobody expected this to happen. Hopefully Sandwich can sort out the issue and get his account back.
:wtf:
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Forum upgrade is finished as you probably guessed by now. HLP theme has not been finished yet, so it will be added later. Search should be functional and I checked that all membergroups should have searching rights back again. Custom bbc codes such as "lvlshot" and custom color tags are not working just yet, we'll add these tags as time allows.
We will be upgrading MediaWiki in the near future. As has been reported several times, the wiki's search is not currently working and the reason to this is that the wiki's search index database table is broken for some reason. Can't fix it as long as the wiki is in use, so the broken index table will be fixed when MediaWiki is upgraded to the latest version.
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:lol: @ the forum now.
it's naked.
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wow, so bland.. at least it's working :p
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wow, so bland.. at least it's working :p
You call this *waves hands around* working?!
What? You do?! Oh... well, I do too...
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haha, i look at the forum and go "what the hell?"
search is working, so now i won't have to post the 6 or so threads i was going to. :nervous:
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Major kudos to Mr. Fury for the troublefree upgrade! Even WAP browsing works! ;)
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WAP? :wtf:
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bah I can't see what I'm writing now. The editbox has both black text and a black background. :p
It's almost worth it for the search though. Anyone else remember those old word association threads? :D
This one is pretty nice too:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,8704.0.html
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The editbox has both black text and a black background. :p
Huh?
WAP? :wtf:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAP
Major kudos to Mr. Fury for the troublefree upgrade! Even WAP browsing works! ;)
Thanks.
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Yup, nicely done, good to see it back to efficiently this time :)
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Huh?
The problem is most likely only on my end, as I have the Windows colors set for green text on black backgrounds. I think it's using the default Windows color for the background but not for the text (which is always black). I'll just wait until the theme is upgraded.
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For a moment I thought I was over at TTLG *shivers*
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If you are wondering what that 15 min pause while the forums weren't loading was about, it was scheduled database backup. Normally it runs about 1AM in Fridays (GMT+1 I think), however this time it was ran manually. When a backup is taken, database tables are locked to preserve data integrity, this is why the forums won't load while a backup is being taken. The SMF database is currently 900MB big, so it takes a while to backup. A 15 minute pause once (or twice if ran manually) in a week is not bad, it is backing up your precious posts after all. :)
Similar scheduled backup is also scheduled for all databases, including the FS Wiki. Although these databases are small enough that nobody probably won't notice the brief period of when database is locked. We've had backups running for 4 months by now, but after the recent forums upgrade and creation of the search index, the backup process takes a lot longer than what it did before.
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Its all due to the sheer amount of posts and threads you have spammed over the years.
Sorry. :nervous:
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We are planning to have another maintenance in the near future, possibly the next weekend or the one after next weekend. During the upcoming maintenance we will do following:
- Replace Apache 2.0 with LightTPD 1.4.11 or newer.
- Upgrade PHP 4.4 to PHP 5.1.4 or newer.
- Upgrade MySQL 4.1 to MySQL 5.0.21 or newer.
- Optimize LightTPD, PHP and MySQL settings.
The biggest change will no doubt be that Apache will be replaced by LightTPD. There will be two major changes regarding this change. First of, .htaccess files will no longer work, use PHP authentication (http://www.zend.com/zend/tut/authentication.php) instead, you can probably find other guides from the net as well. Secondly, we are planning to introduce a new subdomain called downloads.hard-light.net. In the future all public file downloads should be uploaded to this new subdomain, uploading is easy, all you need is an ftp client. What's the deal with this subdomain then? The deal is that we are limiting total throughput of this downloads subdomain to 100Mbps. 100Mbps is enough for all file downloads and does not clog available bandwidth. Traffic shaping is a feature of LightTPD, and Apache does not support it. However, should we encounter bad compatibility issues with LightTPD (Apache being pretty much the industry standard and all), we will drop the subdomain idea and use Apache 2.2.2 or newer instead. If you are curious about LightTPD, visit their homepage (http://www.lighttpd.net/).
If you are wondering about maintenances, let me remind you that last time when server softwares were touched was January, I think. A little over week ago we only upgraded SMF forums and shortly afterwards upgraded MediaWiki. (Patience, HLP themes are coming... :))
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i can't wait to see the new HLP theme. this nekkid theme is driving me crazy. :D
oh, and kudos on the other stuff too. (which i know jack **** about. :p)
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We are planning to have another maintenance in the near future, possibly the next weekend or the one after next weekend. During the upcoming maintenance we will do following:
- Replace Apache 2.0 with LightTPD 1.4.11 or newer.
- Upgrade PHP 4.4 to PHP 5.1.4 or newer.
- Upgrade MySQL 4.1 to MySQL 5.0.21 or newer.
- Optimize LightTPD, PHP and MySQL settings.
The biggest change will no doubt be that Apache will be replaced by LightTPD. There will be two major changes regarding this change. First of, .htaccess files will no longer work, use PHP authentication (http://www.zend.com/zend/tut/authentication.php) instead, you can probably find other guides from the net as well. Secondly, we are planning to introduce a new subdomain called downloads.hard-light.net. In the future all public file downloads should be uploaded to this new subdomain, uploading is easy, all you need is an ftp client. What's the deal with this subdomain then? The deal is that we are limiting total throughput of this downloads subdomain to 100Mbps. 100Mbps is enough for all file downloads and does not clog available bandwidth. Traffic shaping is a feature of LightTPD, and Apache does not support it. However, should we encounter bad compatibility issues with LightTPD (Apache being pretty much the industry standard and all), we will drop the subdomain idea and use Apache 2.2.2 or newer instead. If you are curious about LightTPD, visit their homepage (http://www.lighttpd.net/).
If you are wondering about maintenances, let me remind you that last time when server softwares were touched was January, I think. A little over week ago we only upgraded SMF forums and shortly afterwards upgraded MediaWiki. (Patience, HLP themes are coming... :))
Well, less than 100Mbps, as it's the server's maximum ;)
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Maximum of LightTPD you mean? Our server's behind a gigabit connection. :)
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Nvm then, I suppose I read the wrong page :p
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It has been confirmed that maintenance is scheduled for next saturday-sunday (May 12th-14th). For more details, I am quoting my earlier post in this thread. Maintenance itself is most likely completed on saturday but further optimizations might be done on sunday. While the forums and everything else is open for business after the maintenance, server services still might be optimized and it may be necessary to restart services such as webserver or database server to apply changes.
Please especially note the .htaccess change if you are using such files on hard-light.net. Thank you.
We are planning to have another maintenance in the near future, possibly the next weekend or the one after next weekend. During the upcoming maintenance we will do following:
- Replace Apache 2.0 with LightTPD 1.4.11 or newer.
- Upgrade PHP 4.4 to PHP 5.1.4 or newer.
- Upgrade MySQL 4.1 to MySQL 5.0.21 or newer.
- Optimize LightTPD, PHP and MySQL settings.
The biggest change will no doubt be that Apache will be replaced by LightTPD. There will be two major changes regarding this change. First of, .htaccess files will no longer work, use PHP authentication (http://www.zend.com/zend/tut/authentication.php) instead, you can probably find other guides from the net as well. Secondly, we are planning to introduce a new subdomain called downloads.hard-light.net. In the future all public file downloads should be uploaded to this new subdomain, uploading is easy, all you need is an ftp client. What's the deal with this subdomain then? The deal is that we are limiting total throughput of this downloads subdomain to 100Mbps. 100Mbps is enough for all file downloads and does not clog available bandwidth. Traffic shaping is a feature of LightTPD, and Apache does not support it. However, should we encounter bad compatibility issues with LightTPD (Apache being pretty much the industry standard and all), we will drop the subdomain idea and use Apache 2.2.2 or newer instead. If you are curious about LightTPD, visit their homepage (http://www.lighttpd.net/).
If you are wondering about maintenances, let me remind you that last time when server softwares were touched was January, I think. A little over week ago we only upgraded SMF forums and shortly afterwards upgraded MediaWiki. (Patience, HLP themes are coming... :))
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w00t! Powder blue is gone. The ol' red and black has returned. :D
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1st maintenance phase finished. LightTPD won't be used for now
(Apache 2.2.2 is currently used)
So, .htaccess files works ;)
Now, bed...
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Unfortunately there were some moderate inconveniences with using LightTPD, so apparently Apache will stay as our choice of webserver for quite some time. However, we still haven't dropped downloads.hard-light.net idea completely, there are 3rd party Apache modules such as this one (http://cband.linux.pl/) which just might do the trick. Still, the next phase is certainly optimization of Apache and MySQL.
Edit: We have set up http://downloads.hard-light.net for public file downloads. Hosted project members should see our Hosted Sites Support Forum for details. :)