Possible sporadic interruption to service over the next day or two

[Ian]

Time waits for nobody and it's now time to make some fairly fundamental upgrades to the server's operating system. This involves upgrading the database system and the version of php we operate. This is because we have an update to the vBulletin forum software that we use here. All this ensures that the system rids itself of some bugs and is more resistant to security and reliability threats.

This latest release of the software means the application we use for processing image attachment uploads is no longer supported. So we need to install a more modern alternative.

During the database/php upgrade the forum will not functional. Fortunately, the process isn't time consuming and interruption to service should be brief.

Once this is done we need to uninstall the old image processor and install the new one. I don't know how complex this will be. We did have some issues with the old software when we switched the revamped forum a couple of years ago, but hopefully it won't be too troublesome this time.

Once this has been completed, we'll update the version of vBullettn. There are some minor new features in vBulletin, too, which I will cover later.

So - sorry if the site becomes unstable - I will post notices once work has started and been completed.

Thanks,

Ian

[IainMacD]

Good luck

[moggi1964]

Good luck

Agreed! I'm sure we will all be patient knowing that you are working hard to make it run smoothly.

[blackfox]

thanks for the heads up Ian

[moggi1964]

It is done yet?

[Ian]

I'm hoping to book a database update for around 1PM UK time. The site has to be backed-up and then the update applied, which can take about an hour.

At the time of writing no changes have yet been made.

Ian

[Ian]

This has now been booked - so please expect down time from around 1AM UK time (Wednesday 2nd Feb) - apologies to night owls and members accessing the site from other parts of the globe where it's not the middle of the night

[Bruce Clarke]

Thanks Ian, good luck. That's my normal browsing time being a night owl, so will catch up earlier!

[Ian]

The database was updated last night. Next job is to change the image processing libraries.

Ian

[Ian]

Actually, first, at noon UK time - a short downtime to update our PHP - should only be a few minutes.

Ian

[Ian]

PHP update complete! Now to address the image processing changes...

[Ian]

The good news is that the image processing extensions needed are already installed so I only need flick a proverbial switch, which I have done.

I have done some basic testing and it seems to be working as expected and the image quality is exactly the same as before.

I will be doing more testing but it now looks like I can start planning for the actual forum update.

Ian

[OM USer]

Thank you Ian.

[Ian]

So we are now all set to run the latest update of vBulletin. I will be doing this at 12 noon tomorrow (Friday) - the forum will be closed for around half an hour so and I will post a notice to that effect first thing in the morning.

Ian

[Wee man]

Thanks Ian for all your hard work and energies keeping the site up to date for your grateful members
Ed

[Ian]

Today's update is quite large and the internet here isn't that fast at the moment so it may take an hour instead of half an hour, sorry.

[Ian]

I'm sorry but some post-update problems have appeared - we are aware of a problem with the login process and are working on it.

[Ian]

Fingers crossed - I think the issue has been fixed...