About the outage and upgrade

Discuss the talk-polywell site itself, including appearance, policies, and help-wanted requests from the administrators.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

JoeStrout
Site Admin
Posts: 284
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:40 pm
Location: Fort Collins, CO, USA
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About the outage and upgrade

Post by JoeStrout »

OK. I think we are finally back in action.

I'm too tired to type up a complete report of what went wrong, so let me sum up. Dreamhost upgraded their systems, broke the board, denied it for a while, flailed around trying to help for a while, and finally became nonresponsive. It became clear that the old files were not going to be easily fixed, so I decided to do a fresh install. After a few more false starts and lots of googling, I finally got it sorted out, thanks in part to our own Peter Hanely, who converted a sqlite3 dump into mysql format, and poured the data into the new database.

So, we're not only up and running again, we are now running on MySQL (rather than sqlite) and we're running the very latest version of phpBB (3.1.6). So that should help with the performance issues some of you were experiencing.

I am really, really sorry for the very long outage. I won't be using Dreamhost's "easy 1-click install" process ever again. Hopefully we won't run into this sort of junk again.

If anybody notices anything still awry, please let me know right away (admin at talk-polywell.org).

Thanks,
- Joe
Joe Strout
Talk-Polywell.org site administrator

crowberry
Posts: 672
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:34 am

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by crowberry »

Many thanks Joe for running Talk Polywell and for getting it back up again! :D

mvanwink5
Posts: 2143
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2009 5:07 am
Location: N.C. Mountains

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by mvanwink5 »

Thanks a million Joe and Peter. :D
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JoeP
Posts: 523
Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2011 5:10 am

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by JoeP »

Thanks Joe, it is good to see TP alive.

hanelyp
Posts: 2261
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:50 pm

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by hanelyp »

A correction on the outage report, the old database was in sqlite2 format, which is getting rather long in tooth. The move to a mysql database should also prevent repeats of the occasional cases of severe lag the site used to suffer. sqlite, whether version 2 or the current 3, suffers badly when the database reaches the size of this site.
The daylight is uncomfortably bright for eyes so long in the dark.

CherryPick
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2009 9:39 pm
Location: Finland

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by CherryPick »

Thank you. Fortunately search engines gave some hints of what is going on. The BB upgrade virus is on on this fall. Another BB that I actively follow has had its problems. Third one is NextBigFuture. I was quite active there and stopped writing when they switched to SolidOpinion.

Thanks also about a light choices for this new version.
--------------------------------------------------------
CherryPick
Ph.D.
Computer Science, Physics, Applied Mathematics

ltgbrown
Posts: 198
Joined: Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:15 am
Location: Belgium

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by ltgbrown »

Thanks Joe. I have been missing my daily Talk-Polywell fix! :D
Famous last words, "Hey, watch this!"

choff
Posts: 2447
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:02 am
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by choff »

We're back in the saddle, well done!
CHoff

Giorgio
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Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 6:15 pm
Location: China, Italy

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by Giorgio »

Good job guys! 8)
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JoeP
Posts: 523
Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2011 5:10 am

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by JoeP »

hanelyp wrote:A correction on the outage report, the old database was in sqlite2 format, which is getting rather long in tooth. The move to a mysql database should also prevent repeats of the occasional cases of severe lag the site used to suffer. sqlite, whether version 2 or the current 3, suffers badly when the database reaches the size of this site.
The site does seems much more responsive. Well done.

williatw
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by williatw »

JoeStrout wrote:I'm too tired to type up a complete report of what went wrong, so let me sum up.
Thanks Joe surprised how much I missed this place...reading all of your posts (most of them anyway). Take a good rest Joe; sometime mental/brainwork can be more tiring than physical work, sounds like you earned yourself relaxing with a few beers.

Can't wait to hear what all of you think of:

The Curious Case of KIC 8462852

The Kepler spacecraft recorded a bunch of irregular dimmings around one of its target stars, designated KIC 8462852. No natural phenomenon explains the dips well.


http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronom ... 102020155/

pdxpyro
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2011 4:18 pm

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by pdxpyro »

Joe and Peter - I'd like to add my thanks! I've missed the forums!

Joe - I'd like to especially call out my thanks for the replies to my emails during the outage. The updates were much appreciated.

Regards,
Paul

toddzilla
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 7:46 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by toddzilla »

Thanks for getting TP back online!

Tom Ligon
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Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:23 am
Location: Northern Virginia
Contact:

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by Tom Ligon »

Thanks Joe and Peter! Knowing my level of patience with this sort of snafu, I'd have been screaming like a madman after a couple of days of that.

krenshala
Posts: 914
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:20 pm
Location: Austin, TX, NorAm, Sol III

Re: About the outage and upgrade

Post by krenshala »

Definitely getting faster responses on the new software. Thank you for taking the time to get things back up and running! :D

I'm looking at (assisting) upgrading an older version of phpBB (close to the version the old TP site ran, but already using mysql) for a site I help on. Were their any big snags to watch out for on the upgrade you did?

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