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RAUK - Archived Forum - Forum Upgrade and email addresses

This contains the Forum posts up until the end of March, 2011. Posts may be viewed but cannot be edited or replied to - nor can new posts be made. More recent posts can be seen on the new Forum at http://www.herpetofauna.co.uk/forum/

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Iowarth
Admin Group
Joined: 12 Apr 2004
No. of posts: 222


View other posts by Iowarth
Posted: 17 Jul 2010
As some of you are aware, while this forum is running generally satisfactorily we do have occasional glitches. More often than not I have to make changes to the server to resolve these. Additionally, we have persistent problems with spammers which again I have to resolve manually. I am hoping to address all of these issues by upgrading the forum.
This MAY simply use an upgrade of the current software, but is likely to use both different software and operating systems.
In either case, there is a strong possibility that as a result of transferring existing topics etc to the new software that passwords will be lost or corrupted. New passwords will be allocated and you will be advised of them by email. You will, when you log-on using yoru new password, be able to change it to whatever you prefer. As a result, please ensure that your email address is kept up to date.
This is very much advance warning - since these changes might involve the forum being closed for a few days they will not take place until the depths of winter (and at this point I can't even guarantee which winter!)

Technical details (for those interested)

Currently the forum is hosted on a Windows 2008 Server using Webwiz Forums version 7.91. Upgrading to the current version of Webwiz would address the security issues (at a price!). Also currently an MS Access database is used. This is a further problem as this database is not powerful enough when several users are online simultaneously. In addition, with Windows 2008, support for a 32 bit database is not automatic and frequently is "undone" when Windows updates are installed.
The ideal solution would be to upgrade to SQL Server - but this is expensive. Webwiz themselves offer hosting with SQL Server but the amount of space we require is again prohibitively expensive. Although Webwiz do offer a version which will use MySQL, thus eliminating that cost, their support for this is limited - in fact, they recommend against it.
The most likely approach, therefore, will be to convert the entire Forum to a Linux based alternative - probably PHPbb3.
As stated, however, any of these options will be likely to result in the loss or corruption of some data - and certainly passwords.

Chris


Chris Davis, Site Administrator
Co-ordinator, Sand Lizard Captive Breeding Programme
AndyS
Senior Member
Joined: 26 Aug 2007
No. of posts: 95


View other posts by AndyS
Posted: 18 Jul 2010

Hi Chris

well went to check my details as suggested above and everything was OK, coming out I had to Login again,whilst it accepted my details it wouldn't log me in (This was with FireFox 3.6.6) so I had to resort to IE to post this. HELP!!!!

Just something else to think of? what Browser are people using

AndyS40377.8130671296
Iowarth
Admin Group
Joined: 12 Apr 2004
No. of posts: 222


View other posts by Iowarth
Posted: 18 Jul 2010
Yeap - I can well believe it - I'm a Firefox devotee myself. Quite honestly the more I use MS software/OSes - the more I hate 'em!
Theoretically WebWiz is cross browser - but I am less than convinced that Windows server is! I should imagine all will be OK using FF a little later (I hope!)

All the best
Chris


Chris Davis, Site Administrator
Co-ordinator, Sand Lizard Captive Breeding Programme
AndyS
Senior Member
Joined: 26 Aug 2007
No. of posts: 95


View other posts by AndyS
Posted: 18 Jul 2010
Hi Chris
yeah I think your right about it being a Microsoft related
They can't like people using FireFox haa ha.

(by the way its works OK with OWB on my Amiga Computer as this post
demonstrates so thats other backup option I have)
Iowarth
Admin Group
Joined: 12 Apr 2004
No. of posts: 222


View other posts by Iowarth
Posted: 18 Jul 2010
Hi again Andy

And I should probably have mentioned that I was using Konqueror on an old Linux machine at the time (which hasn't, incidentally, been rebooted for about two years - try that with Windows!)

All the best
Chris

Chris Davis, Site Administrator
Co-ordinator, Sand Lizard Captive Breeding Programme
AndyS
Senior Member
Joined: 26 Aug 2007
No. of posts: 95


View other posts by AndyS
Posted: 22 Jul 2010
Hi Chris
well with the latest update to FireFox and deleting the cookies again it now works

(Unless you fixed it in the mean time)

Iowarth
Admin Group
Joined: 12 Apr 2004
No. of posts: 222


View other posts by Iowarth
Posted: 22 Jul 2010
Hi Andy

On this occasion I can't take the credit. It saddens me to say that the initial FireFox 3.6.6 had a few issues  - some of which I reported. The latest update seems to have solved all the ones I was aware of.


So, much as I enjoy Microsoft bashing (it's not difficult with a company that sells you piece of software that you can't use because it won't accept their own licence key!) on this occasion - weren't them guv!

Chris

Chris Davis, Site Administrator
Co-ordinator, Sand Lizard Captive Breeding Programme

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