Planned Server Downtime, August 31st 19:30 PST

mrvass

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Hello all!

There will be some planned server downtime of endless-sphere.com tomorrow night (31st of August, 2011) starting at 21:00 PST (00:00 EST), lasting an expected 4h worst case. This will be for migration of ES to a more suitable server, and some security fixes. Please excuse the interruption!

edit: Time has been rolled back to 19:30 PST to account for file migration and forum export.
 
After some confirmation with our current hosting solution, there may also be a bit of unplanned downtime as the domain records are updated to switch to the new hosting solution, and this will have to start at 19:30 PST, or 21:30 EST, in order to ensure that a proper, up to date backup is made before our old server is erased.

The service outage might extend into the morning of September 1st, pending propagation times and the responsiveness of our new host as the tables from the shut down board are loaded into the new server.

Again, sorry for the interruption, but this is an unfortunately necessary growing pain.
 
What will the new IP address be? Knowing that, those that wish can add it to their own local stuff once it changes over, before DNS updates.
 
amberwolf said:
What will the new IP address be? Knowing that, those that wish can add it to their own local stuff once it changes over, before DNS updates.

Because of some show-stopping confusion over billing with respect to the old server that was only resolved today, I still need to set up the new server, and this will likely happen within the same timeframe I noted. There are also some online scripts that are used for some of the services that need to be set up, so I'd rather not publicly post the IP at this time. That would normally be a great idea, though, amberwolf.
 
Well, once the new server is setup and running, but DNS isn't updated, you can still go post the IP address over at Ypedal's forum (which is only really there in case ES is down for whatever reason):
http://www.ypedal.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12

Then he can also put it on his ES status page:
http://ypedal.com/ES/ES.htm
 
amberwolf said:
Well, once the new server is setup and running, but DNS isn't updated, you can still go post the IP address over at Ypedal's forum (which is only really there in case ES is down for whatever reason):
http://www.ypedal.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12

Then he can also put it on his ES status page:
http://ypedal.com/ES/ES.htm

I can do that, no problem. I also put a simple html update page up at:

http://ebikes.ca/es/ES-status.html

...Because that doesn't require that YPedal be awake at whatever horribly late hour (EST ;)) I finish the migration.
 
gtadmin said:
For those who aren't in the Americas, is this -8:00UTC?

Due to Daylight Savings Time, what I mean by PST is actually -7:00UTC. So in this case, the maintenance will start at 02:30UTC/GMT tomorrow, the 1st of September 2011. Sorry, I should have specified the time in UTC/GMT in the first place.
 
Testing to make sure things work... Whee!
 
Okay, so the second forum is up, and the dns records should be changing as I type.

Three important things to note:

- Cookies may give some trouble at first: Please log out, and log back in again.
- Attachments are not there right now. As I type, the attachments are being transferred from the old server to the new server. It's 8GB, so even at 400KB/s, this might be a while.
- Please let me know if you experience any problems, whether to do with the board, or to do with slow speed, strange characters, or an unresponsive server. I need this information to evaluate that everything went as it should.

Sorry for the interruption, and welcome back to Endless Sphere!
 
Thank you for actually communicating what's going on with server downtime/maintenance. You are already doing an 8x better job than KnightMB. :D
 
Doing what I can, thanks for the encouragement!

Cookies seem to work, so now it's just the file attachments to finish, which should be on their way soon.

Did you know we have 300MB videos in there under a completely different forum file naming scheme? I didn't :D. Maybe we need to clean that up if we can't find the owner post. :?
 
Erm, that's strange. I don't remember ES ever telling me i can upload video. Maybe you found knightMB's "personal material"? lol..

Anyway did you manage to retrieve the fabled 'lost pictures' circa > 2010, or are they toast? knightMB etc kept promising us that they will come back / will be fixed at some point.... would be great to have a solid answer from someone who knows what they're doing.

Keep it up good sir..
 
Would it be possible to have a page where where all images/videos etc that do not currently have a parent post are viewable?

Also it would be nice to see a page on the personal profile, with links to all attachments uploaded by that person are visible.

I often find myself referring to the same images again and again. and can sometimes find them from my other posts, and just link to them in the new post, rather than upload them again. but sometimes I just can not find them so end up uploading the same image again.

just to be clear, I know there is a "View your own posts" option but I was thinking more of a section that just shows the uploaded images/documents etc

Keep up the good work

Neil
 
neptronix said:
Anyway did you manage to retrieve the fabled 'lost pictures' circa > 2010, or are they toast? knightMB etc kept promising us that they will come back / will be fixed at some point.... would be great to have a solid answer from someone who knows what they're doing.

That's definitely on the todo list, but I'm sad to say that to my knowledge, they aren't just sitting around in the attachments folder.

NeilP said:
Would it be possible to have a page where where all images/videos etc that do not currently have a parent post are viewable?

Probably. I'd have to look into it, and how easy it would be to implement. In the meantime, the wiki is on its way!
 
Thanks Michael, you did a superb job on this server change. It's great to be in new hands!!
 
MrVass, all...
IIRC, there was a "special" video section created for material that youtube would not serve. (eg. "Who killed..." etc.)


Niel, all...
You can upload images to a "utility" topic and associate a keyword so you can find them. Make a dozen "reserved-space " posts and then edit the pics in as needed. (max 10 pics per post, IIRC)
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=144&p=352467&hilit=image+banking#p352467

Alternatively, you could make an "index" post and fill it with links to your images in other posts/locations.


Regards,
TD


P.S. All seems to be working well here (sans images), Thanks MrVass! :D
 
Welcome aboard MrVass,
I recently reposted all the pictures in my threads, and they are now gone again. Please announce when the transfer of the images is complete, so I can determine if I need to repost them.
 
rebelpilot said:
...
Please announce when the transfer of the images is complete, so I can determine if I need to repost them.

I will. Sorry about the delay; 8GB is a lot to transfer at 300KB/s. :?

Should be all done by the afternoon!
 
Michael, thanks for your work on our behalf. :D I am sure it will take some time to get the loose ends from this migration sorted out, let alone the older issues with the forum, hopefully everyone will be patient. I was happy with E:S before, picture problems and all, and it looks like you are making it better every day. We certainly are lucky to have you helping us out!

-JD
 
This is great and thank you for the excellent notes about what's going on. Bonus for us that you know what a 2807 9C is! Welcome aboard...
 
Michael,

My data logging software at http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17458 appears to have gone missing again. When will it be safe to upload it?

Thanks for all the hard work!
 
OlderThanDirt said:
Michael,

My data logging software at http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17458 appears to have gone missing again. When will it be safe to upload it?

Thanks for all the hard work!

I'm actually having a bit of trouble right now restoring the attachments, and I'll let you know when it's finished, but it would certainly be safe to re-upload any file at any time, such as your software. PHPbb just treats the new attachment as a new file.
 
TylerDurden said:
Niel, all...
You can upload images to a "utility" topic and associate a keyword so you can find them. Make a dozen "reserved-space " posts and then edit the pics in as needed. (max 10 pics per post, IIRC)
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=144&p=352467&hilit=image+banking#p352467

Alternatively, you could make an "index" post and fill it with links to your images in other posts/locations.

Hi Tyler, yes I had seen that suggestion before, and although good for new posts, does not solve the issue of what has been posted previously.

I think if we were to go that route, then we would need an individual sub forum...no topics or questions allowed...just each user having his own 'post'...Subject being his own name, with mods being able to delete all posts in each users 'Subject' that are not posted by that user.
That would work great..better even as then others could link to other peoples images if it supports their own post

If my ( or this 'Index Thread' this idea had been implemented in the previous incarnation of the forum, then it would simply be a matter of each user scanning his own thread or profile "upload' section, ..and see which links/attachments etc were broken/missing...as opposed to having to scan each and every single post to find the broken ones. For some of the more prolific posters this would simply be an impossible task with 1000's of posts to scan.

SO MrVass.

Could we maybe have a new Sub Forum.."User upload Index ' or similar with a sticky explaining what it is for. Each user ONLY allowed to post in their own thread, but all users allowed to view the posts and attached linked images
 
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