It's been a tough and irritating few months, as everyone here will attest to. Since taking over the reigns from Jim last September, and migrating everything to a new server, the forum has been plagued by niggling little problems, ranging from not being able to send a PM on occasions, to being completely frozen out due to firewall issues. The final crunch came two or three weeks ago, when a server issue resulted in more or less every image disappearing.
However, good has come of bad, and that catastrophe has proved to be the catalyst needed to get everything sorted out, from the bottom up. Faced with the choice of slashing my wrists or getting on a dealing with it, I opted for the latter, and after involving solicitors and threats of legal action, I gained access to the Big Cheese at the hosting company, rather than having to deal with some random on a support desk near the bottom of the food chain.
The results have been remarkable and I am confident (famous last words) that the software and servers are now in a state whereby we can all now log on and enjoy being here without experiencing any problems. If anyone is experiencing problems going forward, they are likely now to be caused by issues with your own computer or internet access, rather than caused by the forum. (more on that in a moment).
There have been dozens of little changes made behind the scenes to rectify things. I'm not going to list them as they won't make sense to most people anyway, but there have been four major changes, which I will explain.
Firstly, I have purchased completely new and upgraded software from vBulletin, which has been uploaded in a clean state, to overwrite and get rid of the bugs and errors that have crept in over time.
Secondly, although the server provides unlimited storage and bandwidth so that in theory, resources cannot ever be exceeded, actually resources were regularly being exceeded due to incorrect settings elsewhere on the server, so they have been reviewed and revised from the bottom up, and that problem should never re-occur.
Thirdly, the server firewall was extremely zealous in blocking many people's IP addresses as a result of blacklisting, through no fault of their own. The security settings have now also been torn up and started again, so that in this case too, that issue should never re-occur. If you have gone out of your way to purchase a static IP address to overcome this issue yourself I apologise, but suffice to say, you should not now need it.
Fourthly, all the missing images have been recovered and most of them have been restored, going right back to the beginnings of the forum. There are still some to go, which I am slowly working though as time allows. The same event that made them disappear in the first place also messed with the cataloguing in the database for images dating between about the end of last September and the end of January, so although all the images are recovered and safe, they have to re-instated by hand, which is a painstaking operation. I have got through many, many of them but about 2000 still remain, so please bear with me as that task is completed over the coming days and weeks.
I am confident that Penturners.co.uk is now match fit, and I thank everyone for your patience and forbearance over the last few months.
As with all things "computery", little things do need attention from time too time, and since implementing all of the above I have been made aware of small issues that various members have experienced. In almost all cases though, those issues have been the result of either pilot error on the part of the member, or a lack of maintenance on their own computer. All computers need maintenance from time to time, and if you don't have suitable software installed on your machine in order to carry that out, then you should obtain some. Registries, broken links, broadband access setting and many other things all need attention every now and then, and if you are having problems (this is a pretty vast PHP database driven website so it's never going to be as quick to load as a light website a few pages in size), by all means send me a PM, but I would politely suggest that you may also wish to address your own setup as well, and not just automatically assume the problem is due to a fault on the forum.
Best wishes
Phil
However, good has come of bad, and that catastrophe has proved to be the catalyst needed to get everything sorted out, from the bottom up. Faced with the choice of slashing my wrists or getting on a dealing with it, I opted for the latter, and after involving solicitors and threats of legal action, I gained access to the Big Cheese at the hosting company, rather than having to deal with some random on a support desk near the bottom of the food chain.
The results have been remarkable and I am confident (famous last words) that the software and servers are now in a state whereby we can all now log on and enjoy being here without experiencing any problems. If anyone is experiencing problems going forward, they are likely now to be caused by issues with your own computer or internet access, rather than caused by the forum. (more on that in a moment).
There have been dozens of little changes made behind the scenes to rectify things. I'm not going to list them as they won't make sense to most people anyway, but there have been four major changes, which I will explain.
Firstly, I have purchased completely new and upgraded software from vBulletin, which has been uploaded in a clean state, to overwrite and get rid of the bugs and errors that have crept in over time.
Secondly, although the server provides unlimited storage and bandwidth so that in theory, resources cannot ever be exceeded, actually resources were regularly being exceeded due to incorrect settings elsewhere on the server, so they have been reviewed and revised from the bottom up, and that problem should never re-occur.
Thirdly, the server firewall was extremely zealous in blocking many people's IP addresses as a result of blacklisting, through no fault of their own. The security settings have now also been torn up and started again, so that in this case too, that issue should never re-occur. If you have gone out of your way to purchase a static IP address to overcome this issue yourself I apologise, but suffice to say, you should not now need it.
Fourthly, all the missing images have been recovered and most of them have been restored, going right back to the beginnings of the forum. There are still some to go, which I am slowly working though as time allows. The same event that made them disappear in the first place also messed with the cataloguing in the database for images dating between about the end of last September and the end of January, so although all the images are recovered and safe, they have to re-instated by hand, which is a painstaking operation. I have got through many, many of them but about 2000 still remain, so please bear with me as that task is completed over the coming days and weeks.
I am confident that Penturners.co.uk is now match fit, and I thank everyone for your patience and forbearance over the last few months.
As with all things "computery", little things do need attention from time too time, and since implementing all of the above I have been made aware of small issues that various members have experienced. In almost all cases though, those issues have been the result of either pilot error on the part of the member, or a lack of maintenance on their own computer. All computers need maintenance from time to time, and if you don't have suitable software installed on your machine in order to carry that out, then you should obtain some. Registries, broken links, broadband access setting and many other things all need attention every now and then, and if you are having problems (this is a pretty vast PHP database driven website so it's never going to be as quick to load as a light website a few pages in size), by all means send me a PM, but I would politely suggest that you may also wish to address your own setup as well, and not just automatically assume the problem is due to a fault on the forum.
Best wishes
Phil
