Hi all

As I mentioned, this link is meant to provide some information about creating a new forum to replace this outdated one.

Our web host has contacted us about doing some updates to the software we use for security reasons.
They plan on updating Php (which we use to serve web pages to everyone) as the old version is being abandoned soon.

This is an expected event and I have anticipated them doing this at some point.

It is quite possible and even likely that this forced change might make the forum malfunction or even stop working completely.

At the same time, the forum software we are using is also quite old - namely PhpBB version 3.0.12
This software was released in 2007 (Ver 3.0)

There is no upgrade path to any newer version of the software without losing all the customisations I have done and the style I have used (Eg: - The grass background Steve created)

Because of this, it's been decided that I'll need to redo the forum again from scratch using modern software.

To minimise any downtime, I will build a brand new site on a new web host somewhere, then have people test it and make sure it's ok before switching over. This is what we have done previously.

Please note that this is being forced on us so I'll create a new site and have it tested and ready to go to replace the current forum before it stops working.

My goal will be to make it very similar to the current site (naturally) but also to utilise any enhancements that a modern web forum offers. (Eg: Being more mobile friendly)

For those that don't like all the tech jargon:

In a nutshell, - this current forum will one day break and cannot be updated - I'll make a new one somewhere that's similar and have it ready to go before this one stops working.

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Subject: IMPORTANT DreamHost Update - PHP 5.5 End of Life

DreamHost here! We've got some important news about your PHP account configuration. Listen up!

The fine folks who maintain the PHP project have stopped supporting versions of PHP older than 5.6. Some of these versions are in use on your DreamHost account.

This poses a significant risk to your sites as security updates for versions of PHP prior to 5.6 are no longer available.

The domains on your account affected include:

forum.stevegleiber.com

To keep things safe, secure, and running smoothly, we'll soon begin upgrading the version of PHP used on those domains to PHP 5.6.

We expect to start transitioning all accounts using outdated versions of PHP to 5.6 starting on March 14th, and we expect to have all older versions completely phased out across all of our hosting servers shortly thereafter.

If you have any web apps installed by our web panel's one-click installer that are not set to “auto-upgrade,” please look into upgrading them as soon as you are able to avoid downtime.

We've put some info in our knowledge base that should address most of your questions about this update.

We'll contact you again within the next few days once we've completed work on your site(s). Please don't hesitate to contact our technical support team in the meantime if there's anything else we can do for you.

Thanks very much!

-The Happy DreamHost PHP Update Team

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This is the forum software version we are using :



Even 'updating' to 3.0.14 won't fix the eventual problem.

The latest version of PhpBB is 3.2

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=2402101

"Most MODs for 3.0.x are incompatible with 3.2.x and their functionality will be removed in the update process.
Styles for 3.0.x cannot be installed or used on 3.2.x."

I do not have a time frame as yet of when a new site will be ready for testing.

More information to follow ...

I know this might be reaching a bit far but is it possible to have a vote for MOM after every game by just pressing a button.

What about the ability to like a post?

Will think about this a bit more.

Not sure how I can implement the MOM but I think a thread for MOM would be doable with a voting system.

Liking a post should be doable easily enough. The new forum will have social linking in it.

After the switch to the new site, will this old one still be accessible?

Ideally, this would be great if I could pull it off.

The reason for a new site however is that there is no upgrade path for the current site.

I can update the site and keep the existing database (I believe) but I will still lose all the mods and theming of this site.
When the web host upgrades, this site will possibly break - As in, it may just become a white background with something like "Error 550" or whatever.

Hence moving to an updated forum.

Another problem I face is the current web host some time ago changed from using the standard "C-Panel" to their own custom interface - because of this, exporting the data to a different web host isn't automatic and might not even be possible due to our current web hosts customisations.

As for keeping the current data, my other option was to simply follow the upgrade path to a new version of Php (losing the skin and mods) and then reattempt to redo the mods it had, and the skin it uses (Green grass, etc).

The problem with doing that is the downtime there would be whilst that work is being done and the risk that it might fail for whatever reason.

Also, by importing the old sites data, the current bugs it has will also come over to the newly updated site.
Or possibly, it might not work at all. If I wait until that time, I might not have a working site for people to use.

And, as for keeping the data, we would have to maintain paying this web host for an archived site (which might not even keep working) and start a new address for it.

Anyway, all that aside, I'm going to try and create an updated forum, then get it ready to roll, then try importing this forums data en masse and just see what happens.

The advantage of using a new web host means I can work on an updated forum completely independent of this current forum.

It's a shame I'm not able to just upgrade to the latest version as I've done in the past. I think this forum has had 5 incremental upgrades over time.
The last upgrade it had broke the search function for member names whilst the initial patch made the occasional post create an error message in large writing which you may have seen.

thanks for the update Warrior. I guess I was most interested in the post data. Just out of curiousity, how big is the db / site now?

It's 750 Meg - almost all in the single main thread.

I did a trick and managed to save the old forum and get it transferred over here where we can continue using the older version of Php 5.5

This allows more time to decide what to do next.