PLEASE READ Possible Forum Upgrade Today -- Please Read and Relax

[Forum Boss]

We are attempting an important Forum software upgrade today.

It may or may not work.

If it proceeds, the site may be down (offline) for an hour, or maybe quite a bit longer.

If something goes wrong, the Forum could be shut down for a good while.

Please guys, just let us get through this.

Do not start "WTH is going on?" threads.
Do not PM the admins.
Do not make angry posts.
Do not send us emails.
Do not post on other Forums that you can't connect here.

That will only complicate the process.

All I can say is that this a very, very, very difficult and complex process. The software creators did NOT make this easy. Not one bit. There are literally dozens of add-ons that have to be synched, and a vast database has to be transferred.

Also, I would suggest you DO NOT POST new Classifieds today. They might be lost.

You see, there will be a "lost time" when some posts cannot be transferred over. We will try to minimize this... but we will lose some of today's activity if we proceed with the switch-over. That is unavoidable.

 

[Whisky Tahoe Foxtrot]

Roger that Boss. Most of us will behave

 

[Forum Boss]

Honestly, the best thing folks can do is log out and come back tomorrow.

As noted, it is not clear if the migration will go properly. There are many pitfalls, with dozens of pieces of code, from different authors, that all have to join up properly.

I have been running this site since 2004. This is probably five times as hard as anything we've ever had to do before. If a Windows OS update was this hard, 90% of personal computers would stop working.

 

[gdbleb]

Best of luck on the conversion Boss. Been doing these kind of conversion/upgrades/rehosting for >40 years.
An old buddy said the well-worn phrase "Long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror" applied to this kind of work.

 

[Big Mc]

We are attempting an important Forum software upgrade today.

It may or may not work.

If it proceeds, the site may be down (offline) for an hour, or maybe quite a bit longer.

If something goes wrong, the Forum could be shut down for a good while.

Please guys, just let us get through this.

Do not start "WTH is going on?" threads.
Do not PM the admins.
Do not make angry posts.
Do not send us emails.
Do not post on other Forums that you can't connect here.

That will only complicate the process.

All I can say is that this a very, very, very difficult and complex process. The software creators did NOT make this easy. Not one bit. There are literally dozens of add-ons that have to be synched, and a vast database has to be transferred.

Also, I would suggest you DO NOT POST new Classifieds today. They might be lost.

You see, there will be a "lost time" when some posts cannot be transferred over. We will try to minimize this... but we will lose some of today's activity if we proceed with the switch-over. That is unavoidable.

Do what you have to do Paul.. and THANKS.

 

[Bill Norris]

U doing a fine job Boss. No worries at all.

 

[Intheshop]

Best of luck with the...... uhh,whatever it is.

 

[Riesel]

Later Dude

 

[jpx2rk]

I tried to check in late yesterday afternoon, saw there was some maint going on. Looks good this morning, hope it went well for you guys, or as well as it could anyways.

 

[hpshooter]

Honestly, the best thing folks can do is log out and come back tomorrow.

As noted, it is not clear if the migration will go properly. There are many pitfalls, with dozens of pieces of code, from different authors, that all have to join up properly.

I have been running this site since 2004. This is probably five times as hard as anything we've ever had to do before. If a Windows OS update was this hard, 90% of personal computers would stop working.

Everything looks fine here so far this morning!

 

[rebel]

Looks Good Paul!

 

[Eric Bliss]

Hello, wondering if there are still upgrade activities in progress or if everything should be working at this point. Thank you

 

[KEVIN HATCHER]

IT'S JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE. GO FOR IT .. THANKS FO WHAT YOU DO !!!!

 

[L W P]

I haven't been on the site in a week or so, because of work, and BOY what a change. To me its confusing to see how everything looks so different. It seems to have been fine for years. Not sure why the change. I guess I'm just one of those guys who doesn't care for change (upgrades) on the computer or my cell phone. Good luck.

 

[Forum Boss]

As we have explained, the upgrade was mandatory...

No choice folks, no choice.

The previous software has not been supported for over a year.

There was the growing possibility of a really bad failure that could lead to major, unfixable loss of data.

Trust me, if this was avoidable, we wouldn't have done it!

I turned 65 yesterday. This upgrade was, without question, one of the most stressful projects I have ever experienced in my entire working life. And we still have some bugs to fix.

Many of the features people liked were provided by "add-ons" that simply did not exist for the new software. Multiple times we found unanticipated issues and had to start over.

-- The Good News --------

Overall from a user (vs. Admin) perspective, I think it is better and most folks say so. The fonts are larger. The Mobile display is definitely better. There are more options for photos and attachments. The home page is easier to read. And the Forum is now a SECURE (https) site.

We are working on the search -- an upgrade is coming but we need to do some bug fixes first.

I want people to understand something. Modern Forum software is incredibly complex. At any given time we may have 500+ simultaneous users all demanding access to millions of posts, and hundreds of thousands of photos. Plus there is the trader history, and private messages.

 

[Just Say Moe]

Looks great, works great. Whatever is needed to keep it going!

 

[urbanrifleman]

One of the only things I noticed (that I liked on the previous version) is that on mobile you cannot see the page numbers on the threads from the forum view.

I bet it was very stressful. Doing it during the covid nightmare would make it worse.

 

[TBeghtol]

Forum Boss admins etc. Thank you for the many times thankless job of maintaining this site.
I cannot imagine the work it takes to keep it all running.
The information, fellowship, and even entertainment I get from this forum is beyond value and is why I think becoming a paying member is so important for all who can.

Question, (NOT a complaint...) Did there used to be a "similar threads" box at the bottom of pages in forums? I may be confusing this with some other forum I belong to.

Thanks again for all who make this site work!


Tim Beghtol

 

[jelenko]

Hmm. I'm remembering the same.

 

[Forum Boss]

YES, there was a similar threads feature. We have deactivated that (temporarily) because we are still doing Forum trouble shooting so we have turned off some non-essential features.

Sort of like turning off the air-conditioning on your car if the motor is running hot.