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It's baaaaack! — Parallax Forums

It's baaaaack!

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
edited 2014-11-24 13:59 in General Discussion
Congrats to Bump and his forum migration team! It took awhile (!), but I'm happy with the results so far. Mainly, Parallax's observance of the physician's mantra, "First, do no harm," seems to have prevailed. For that I am grateful.

-Phil
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Comments

  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2014-11-21 22:46
    Who can spot the differences?
    - Top bar missing custom buttons
    - Avatars smaller
    - Discount code (FORUMS2014)
  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2014-11-21 22:47
    It looks like the upgrade failed:

    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/158209-Forums-Ugrrrra..-up-wait-for-it.?p=1302967#post1302967
  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2014-11-21 22:50
    Interestingly, the forums says "There are currently 400 users online. 19 members and 381 guests". How did 381 random people get here in the last 10 minutes?
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
    edited 2014-11-21 22:56
    Tuesday: Wore out the carpet pacing up and down.
    Wednesday: Visit the Dr for some meds to calm me down.
    Thursday: High as a kite from the meds.
    Friday: Cardiac scare - luckily just hypertension from missing the forums hit.
    Saturday: Blood pressure coming down - getting a hit from the forums - but few posts :(

    Thanks for the hardwork guys. Better luck next time ;)
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2014-11-21 22:57
    Oh, wait:

    And I thought this was it: minor changes, no harm done, nothing to get upset about ...

    -Phil
  • Jim EwaldJim Ewald Posts: 733
    edited 2014-11-21 23:01
    We are running a modified copy of the old software. We are still working with the vBulletin support team to correct a few issue we encountered during the initial upgrade. Once those issues are resolved, we will reapply the update but in a much more timely manner.
  • WBA ConsultingWBA Consulting Posts: 2,934
    edited 2014-11-21 23:06
    Dang, I was just getting used to the forums being down as my excuse for not getting my projects done..... Glad things are "back up". Thanks Parallax! Good luck on getting the gremlins all stamped out.
  • Jim EwaldJim Ewald Posts: 733
    edited 2014-11-21 23:07
    I am glad your BP is returning to normal. Mine is going to take a little longer. The was a perfect storm of circumstances that stopped us from completing this today. We will review this on Monday and prepare to climb the hill one more time - on test servers.
  • BumpBump Posts: 592
    edited 2014-11-21 23:11
    Did you know you have 1.4 million conversations on this forum?
    Some updates to ch-ch-changes; I think we're keeping the classifieds, and signatures can have all the links and space you want. We've got them off the postbit and visible through the profiles, and users can toggle to view signatures or not as a personal setting.

    The forum's delay will also give the supreme graphics team, which might be one person..., time to work on the new Parallax Dark, because we only had the light version skinned.
  • Oldbitcollector (Jeff)Oldbitcollector (Jeff) Posts: 8,091
    edited 2014-11-22 01:38
    Welcome back Parallax!

    SysMaintBan.jpg
    SysMaintBan.jpg
    750 x 250 - 22K
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-11-22 01:51
    Phew! It's a relief to have the forums back. The universe is back in balance.
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2014-11-22 02:16
    Now I can stop my search for a 12 step program for Forum Addiction. :)
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2014-11-22 04:30
    Publison wrote: »
    Now I can stop my search for a 12 step program for Forum Addiction. :)

    Just admit you are powerless and your life has become unmanageable. The rest of the steps should come easily.

    I see General Discussion has been moved down. Actually, I suspect that will be a good thing as the discussion is often off in the weeds.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-11-22 05:34
    Small boy - "Daddy, what did you do during the great Parallax forums blackout of 2014."

    Father - "Well, son, there is a reason you were born in August"


    Normally I might be tempted to giggle at the embarrassingly dismal failure to upgrade the forum. However it turns out that this week we also had some server software upgrading to do. New Linux OS version, 32 bit to 64 bit transition, new versions of many libraries, new configurations. Without these in place we could not carry development forward. Well, it's amazing how many breaking changes in OS and libs and whatever can happen in the couple of years since we set the thing up. That up grade has taken my coworkers and I all week to to get running and it is still not perfect.

    We thought we were being smart by doing the upgrade on a new server whilst keeping the old one in service. Murphy had a different idea, he arranged for the original system to fail catastrophically at the beginning of the week...

    All in all there was not much free time here to notice the Parallax down time.


    So what did everyone else get up to?
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2014-11-22 05:59
    What's this about a Laser Cutter fire at Parallax?

    http://www.savagecircuits.com/content.php?206-Parallax-Forums
  • ratronicratronic Posts: 1,451
    edited 2014-11-22 07:58
    Bump wrote: »
    time to work on the new Parallax Dark, because we only had the light version skinned.

    +1 for the dark theme.
  • Hal AlbachHal Albach Posts: 747
    edited 2014-11-22 10:13
    SRLM wrote: »
    Who can spot the differences?
    - Top bar missing custom buttons
    - Avatars smaller
    - Discount code (FORUMS2014)

    Animated avatars appear to be inanimate, at least as far as Loopy's
  • User NameUser Name Posts: 1,451
    edited 2014-11-22 10:33
    Heater. wrote: »
    So what did everyone else get up to?

    RCGroups.com has long been part of the emergency back-up plan here. It's crazy to see all the contraptions people have made and flown with just a piece or two of Dollar Tree foamboard or a sheet of insulating foam panel from a local home improvement store. Fortunately there is a substantial overlap between the P1 and smallish DIY aircraft. :)
  • Mag748Mag748 Posts: 266
    edited 2014-11-22 11:30
    It's kind of funny that the whole time the main forums were down, the preview forum was still up and running fine, but no one used it.
  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2014-11-22 11:44
    ...and here I was thinking I had a Smile Interweb connection whilst instructing a client-site class in Mexico over the last couple weeks.
  • NWCCTVNWCCTV Posts: 3,629
    edited 2014-11-22 11:51
    The site being down forced me to break out my Toddler and start to assemble it. However, I may tear it apart so my Grandson can help over the upcoming long weekend.

    I like the new layout and I also like the fact that links in signatures will be in tact and also so will the Classifieds. Good job guys.
  • RDL2004RDL2004 Posts: 2,554
    edited 2014-11-22 12:50
    You all realize this is just the same old forums with a few small changes?
    Not the major upgrade that was intended. They will get around to it though.

    What is the point of the smaller avatar pictures?
    120 pixels was small enough already.
    I can turn off the animated ones myself, thank you.
    Replacing user content with your version is ...
    well, probably not a good idea.

    -1 for less content, more white space.
  • NWCCTVNWCCTV Posts: 3,629
    edited 2014-11-22 13:10
    You all realize this is just the same old forums with a few small changes?


    No Top menu either!!! Any how, yes, we know. If it aint broke don't fix it. (Oh wat, it was broke!!!)
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-11-22 13:51
    OK. Who did it? Who broke the forum?

    1) In advanced edit I no longer have any buttons for code blocks or quotes or formatting. That is to say almost no "advanced" features at all.

    2) Adding a URL manually, which I have to do because of 1) above, results in broken links with <br> being inserted into them. For example this (without the spaces in the brackets):
    [ url ]
    http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.11.11/node-v0.11.11-linux-arm-pi.tar.gz
    [ /url ]
    Results in this:
    [url]
    http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.11.11/node-v0.11.11-linux-arm-pi.tar.gz
    [/url]

    Edit: I notice now something is automatically wrapping URLs with markup so it actually ends up in the post twice.

    3) My avatar is shrinking!

    4) General discussion has dropped way down the page.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2014-11-22 14:32
    heater wrote:
    4) General discussion has dropped way down the page.
    This is something I complained about before the fact, since I knew it was coming. My point was that whichever forum is on top will attract the most dross, if past experience is any indication; so putting General Discussion on top would keep that stuff out of the more targeted forums. However, Bump did a clever thing: he put the Announcements forum on top. Since no one can post there, if can't attract the kinds of problems encounterd before. I think it'll be fine that way.

    -Phil
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2014-11-22 14:39
    I really like that avatars can't be animated. I can't stand them. It's distracting, and I want as little as possible of that. I for one hope that animated avatars won't reappear when the forum gets upgraded.

    -Tor
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    edited 2014-11-22 17:10
    After I saw the forum was down longer than intended I redacted my requests metaphysically. I can only imagine from the limited experience I have with shopping carts what upgrading a huge forum is like. Especially considering most of the errors will be undocumented.

    Thanks for the perseverance!
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    edited 2014-11-22 17:35
    RDL2004 wrote: »
    You all realize this is just the same old forums with a few small changes?
    Not the major upgrade that was intended. They will get around to it though.

    What is the point of the smaller avatar pictures?
    120 pixels was small enough already.
    I can turn off the animated ones myself, thank you.
    Replacing user content with your version is ...
    well, probably not a good idea.

    -1 for less content, more white space.

    They're both inheriting the same class so I would imagine that uploaded images are no longer scaled to fit the 75x75. Probably something temporary...
  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2014-11-22 18:12
    My guess is that the forum software is a new install (of the old version), and they just dropped in the old forum data. Configuration lived elsewhere, and that's why it's messed up.

    One of the config options seems to be the post template. The avatars now have a "type=thumb" query string parameter:

    http://forums.parallax.com/image.php?u=53784&dateline=1345594153&type=thumb

    Take that away and you get our familiar big avatars:
    http://forums.parallax.com/image.php?u=53784&dateline=1345594153
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    edited 2014-11-22 18:22
    Precisely, they wanted to do something temporary for us and work the problem offline.
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