The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

This will contain important announcements about ZAFur as well as the site rules. Check in here from time to time to keep up to speed.
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Valerion
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The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#1

Post by Valerion »

Hi all,

I have decided this weekend to do an upgrade on the forum, as we do need to keep up with our security and such. However, the mistake I made was trusting the upgrade procedure on the host we use. This was an unmitigated disaster and lead to the complete destruction of the board (as you probably noticed). The real cause took me many hours to track down, but I finally did. A should send a glitterbomb to Hostpoint for this.

But it is now back online, and running the latest phpBB. I will see how hard it would be to recover our theme again. But welcome back, all.

And my apologies for the downtime.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#2

Post by Adagio »

Valerion wrote:I will see how hard it would be to recover our theme again. But welcome back, all.

And my apologies for the downtime.
Please do! This one is ghastly!

No issues!
Thanks for working around the clock to get ol' faithfull back to us!
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#3

Post by Tocs »

No rush :) do what you need to do
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#4

Post by Raven Song »

GLITTERBOMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#5

Post by Leeward »

As long as the database is intact, and it seems like it is, it's all good. :)
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#6

Post by Cape_F0X »

Image
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#7

Post by Linea »

Hey thanks for working so hard to get it back up and running! :D
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#8

Post by rusted hydra »

I was worried that zafur was hacked and deleted Q....Q
glad to hear it is okay
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#9

Post by IT-Werewolf »

I rather like this theme.

http://donotspeaktomeorelse.deviantart.com
http://www.facebook.com/it.werewolf
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/it-werewolf/

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I suffer from mild Asperger's Syndrome.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#10

Post by Sev »

At least this one is a lot more mobile friendly.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#11

Post by Leeward »

^ That might just be the code update.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#12

Post by Galahad »

Darn it! My attempt to sabotage the forum has been foile--

Er! I mean, uh... Rotten luck... Um... I am glad everything is back in order. Yes. Definitely.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#13

Post by Sev »

Leeward wrote:^ That might just be the code update.
I know that, but my point still stands.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#14

Post by Ryall »

Where were you when the forum died?

#ZAFur2016 #Neverforget2016
Hahaha! :lol:
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#15

Post by Sev »

Bloody hell, Ryall, and you say that I post nonsense on the forum...
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#16

Post by Galahad »

I swear, if you two begin the whole 'hyena versus snow leopard' debate again... :P
I can almost already hear Valerion's deep, rumbling exhortation: "Stay on-topic, please."
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#17

Post by Raven Song »

Dude it is legit easier to post pictures... just saying...
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#18

Post by Valerion »

The ZAFur Map is another casualty. Seems the API changed in 3.1, so that may need to be redone as well.
StargazingSerpent wrote:I can almost already hear Valerion's deep, rumbling exhortation: "Stay on-topic, please."
You made me think of this.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#19

Post by Hargan »

Hey Val, thanks for spending your weekened fixing up the forum.

I have noticed, although not as urgent a fix as others, but two issues: Hardware (under tech section) and Movies and Tv shows (under arts and entertainment) show no posts on the external link (wherein it would show the latest post), but are indeed filled still with posts and topics.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#20

Post by Randall »

That is because those SQL DB tables were likely dropped because of the incorrect method of upgrading a phpBB forum.
Honestly, if I were you admin, I'd get the hosting company to restore the site from a backup to Friday evening, you won't lose much aside from this thread and a few other posts.

Additionally I'd recommend you upgrade to VBulletin instead. phpBB has always got security issues and problems due to being a labour of love ie a free product.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#21

Post by Valerion »

Hargan wrote:Hey Val, thanks for spending your weekened fixing up the forum.

I have noticed, although not as urgent a fix as others, but two issues: Hardware (under tech section) and Movies and Tv shows (under arts and entertainment) show no posts on the external link (wherein it would show the latest post), but are indeed filled still with posts and topics.
Fixed
Randall wrote:That is because those SQL DB tables were likely dropped because of the incorrect method of upgrading a phpBB forum.
Honestly, if I were you admin, I'd get the hosting company to restore the site from a backup to Friday evening, you won't lose much aside from this thread and a few other posts.

Additionally I'd recommend you upgrade to VBulletin instead. phpBB has always got security issues and problems due to being a labour of love ie a free product.
We might move to VBulletin one day, if the forum has a steady income stream. Right now that won't happen though.
And I like how you classify free products as fundementally broken and insecure simply because they are free. I do not agree with that assesssment. pbpBB may have issues, but that's not simply because it's free.

Also, no DB restore needed. A simple topic bump sorted out the display issue.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#22

Post by Rakuen Growlithe »

I don't see any reason to move. I think we should support free and/or open source software and if moving means losing posts and the forum history then I am against it.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#23

Post by Sev »

Rakuen Growlithe wrote:I don't see any reason to move. I think we should support free and/or open source software and if moving means losing posts and the forum history then I am against it.
I am of exactly the same sentiment.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#24

Post by Randall »

And I like how you classify free products as fundementally broken and insecure simply because they are free. I do not agree with that assesssment. pbpBB may have issues, but that's not simply because it's free.
I like how you make an assumption out of thin air.
I don't have a problem with software being free. My issue is that phpBB has been hacked, time and time again. It is not very secure, never has been.
Have you ever had the honour of cleaning up a phpBB forum post hack? Probably not.
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Re: The Great Forum Outage of April 2016

#25

Post by Valerion »

Randall wrote:
And I like how you classify free products as fundementally broken and insecure simply because they are free. I do not agree with that assesssment. pbpBB may have issues, but that's not simply because it's free.
I like how you make an assumption out of thin air.
I don't have a problem with software being free. My issue is that phpBB has been hacked, time and time again. It is not very secure, never has been.
Have you ever had the honour of cleaning up a phpBB forum post hack? Probably not.
Your exact quote:

phpBB has always got security issues and problems due to being a labour of love ie a free product.

Let's reword some stuff:

Product X has always got security issues and problems due to being a labour of love ie a free product.

This is what I read. Sorry if it's not what you meant.
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