Announcement ATTENTION: The Portal & Forum will be rehosted next week

[Brogan]

All,

The portal and forum will be rehosted next week to a more powerful server.
There may be some disruption whilst the changeover takes place.

If you notice any problems, issues or bugs, please post on this thread so I can inform support.

If you are unable to log in or access the site, please let me know by sending an email to administrator@cliptheapex.com

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Okay ... stupid with computers here! ... what does that mean for us?

Is it still informe that will host it?
Do we have a different log in address?
Will we notice when it has happened? ie will the home page etc look the same.

and most importantly ... WHY

I know, I ask a load of questions, but being a bit paranoid I'm not keen on change.

 

[Brogan]

The change should be completely transparent to users.
The URL will be exactly the same, it will still be hosted by Informe, there will be no change to all User IDs and passwords and the forum will be identical with no changes, well, apart from any that I make that is

The reason for the change is Informe are upgrading their servers to more powerful machines due to the ever-growing load.
Hopefully it should mean a faster forum with less down-time; I have noticed the forum slowing down on occasion over the last few weeks so this should resolve it.
Think of it as you upgrading your PC at home. It's more or less the same thing that Informe are doing.

There may be some problems during the transition phase depending on how smoothly the work goes and how long it takes the new server address to propagate around the internet.

Fingers crossed it will all go smoothly.

 

[Jen]

Sure it's for the best Salti - p'raps it will just be faster - I've noticed a slow down, but always thought it was my computer

 

[Guest]

I'm sure it will be Jen .. just remembering how spooked we all got when a certain thread lady appeared .. so probably not just me thats paranoid lol

Thanks for the clarification Brogan

 

[Jen]

Indeed, the thread lady - reminds me of my Grandma, a truly awesome person!!

 

[Brogan]

Well as you've all seen, it hasn't exactly gone smoothly.

Quite the opposite in fact.

Unfortunately as it's a free forum I have no control over what Informe do so all we can do is grin and bear it until they finish the work.

Hopefully it won't go on too much longer...

 

[Brogan]

Well I finally got an answer of sorts from Informe.

We need to move about 1900 portals including yours. We already moved more than 12350 portals. Thus we are finishing moving, and your portal will be available soon (we hope it will be finished soon; we get high loading at the server where your portal is placed and thus moving from your portal's server is some slowly than from other servers; we disabled all the portals from your portal's server to make moving faster).

So it would appear we're on the final stretch.
All of the problems so far have been due to overloaded servers and not because our forum was moved.

They're doing ours now and to make it quicker they've disabled the old server where we are currently located which is why the site was completely down.
Fingers crossed as soon as the migration is complete we'll be back up and running for good.

As with any upgrade, there is the possibility of residual problems.
If you do notice any issues, please post them here.

 

[left_toe_lace_ups]

everything seems to be working all tickity boo today... log in was superfast as apposed to super duper slow and giving up, pages load really fast tooo so whatever it was seem to be fixed now, at least from my end..

 

[Brogan]

That's the good news.....

Unfortunately Informe have advised that they cancelled the last part of the copy process as it was taking too long.

So right now I don't know if we're on the old or new server, when the work will restart and what impact it will have on the site when it does.

I'll update this thread as and when I get more information.

 

[Porceliamone]

These guys have to be the worst free host on the planet. Ah well. It seems to be working ok at the mo' so mustn't grumble!

 

[Brogan]

These guys have to be the worst free host on the planet.

They certainly seem determined to kill this site

Looks like we're in for another day of the usual....

 

[Brogan]

Latest update is we're still on the old server

So your guess is as good as mine as to exactly what Informe are doing

They did apparently switch the server off not long ago again to speed up the transfer.
Their reasoning was it was still early in the US so it was fine to switch it off...

Thankfully they've switched it back on again now (after much ranting and raving from yours truly ) but I expect we still have considerable disruption ahead.

Edit: Apparently they've got 1,400 portals left to move and an average of 300 a day are moved over by the automatic script. So that's another 5 days or so of problems.

 

[Brogan]

Apologies for all the downtime everyone but I can finally announce that we are nearing the end of this saga.

We are now on the new server. I have confirmed this as we are running a newer version of the MySQL database.

The reason for the lengthy outage today was the transfer over and the updating of the routing tables to point to the new server.
This is done automatically so it's just a matter of waiting until they update, which was the reason for the database errors earlier for those of you that encountered them.

It would seem there is still some transferring going on and optimisation of the database as the site is still very sluggish but we are near the end.

As a result of all this I have started looking into rehosting the site to a paid domain.
As soon as I've determined the feasibility of that I'll update everyone.

If you notice any errors at all, can you post them here so I can address them ASAP?

Thanks.

 

[Brogan]

So far a few bugs have been found with Chat.

1. Chat regularly freezes and it requires a page refresh to get it working again.
2. Occasionally the forum logo appears in the chat box.
3. Other times the internet explorer 404 error page appears.
4. An error message "method not implemented" is appearing randomly.

These have all been reported to Informe.

 

[Brogan]

If anyone does manage to read this, I am urgently trying to get the site re-hosted.

I've given up with Informe as it seems they are no longer able to provide a service.

I have purchased a domain and as soon as it is configured I wil be transferring the site over.
The new address will be: http://cliptheapex.com

This is all new to me so if anyone can offer any help or advice it would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Brogan]

Just to keep everyone updated.

The new site is now working and I have installed the forum.
I now need to install all of the tweaks that this board has such as the chat box, Wiki, etc.

I will try and get it to a basic level and then move everything over so we can at least start using a stable board.

I hope to have this done early next week.

 

[Brogan]

Well we finally made it.

There are a few niggles to iron out but it's 99% working.
If you notice any errors, please post them here.

You will have to re-upload your avatar if you had one on the old forum as it was not possible to copy those files across.

Over the coming weeks I plan to install the modules that were on the other site such as Portal, Wiki and Gallery.
As this site is totally independent of Informe, it also gives us more flexibility to install other applications and features.

I would like to say a HUGE thanks to gribbli.
He spent days and many very late nights editing the database to ensure we could get the users and post data transferred over.
Without him it would have been a blank forum and we would have had to start from scratch.

Cheers gribbli

 

[slickskid]

Brogan & Gav... job very well done!!!

Drinks all round, salti is paying <runs>

Seriously though thanks guys your efforts are much appreciated.

 

[Guest]

Oii!!! slick do you think I'm made of money?

If I'm paying I'm hiding .. I am Scottish after all

The site looks great .. congrats