Board Maintenance [14:00, 11 May 2008]

Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
This weekend, BiG D and I are implementing a major upgrade to this board. There's a lot of work to do but I optimistically hope to be complete inside two hours.

The changes will impact the core board functionality and a number of the extras that we've integrated, such as the XBL leaderboard and the event attendance stuff. You may notice a difference, you might not.

Either way, please be patient and ensure that you're done with whatever you need from the board by 14:00 on Sunday and don't expect it back up 'til the evening.
 
Traxata

Traxata

Junior Administrator
On this front, Ronin, Would it not be an idea to have a Clone of the board running? that way people can use the board, while you update another instance of it, and then just swap the databases over when you're happy with it?

It won't be seamless obviously, but instead of having no boards for a number of hours, we can still be pottering around :)
 
Iron_fist

Iron_fist

Super Moderator
Staff member
i would also imagine that a significant board upgrade will require some database changes meaning even if there was a copy there would have to be down time while the database upgrades. i say just accept that there will be down time on sunday and play some games instead :)
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
Ronin Storm said:
There's a lot of work to do but I optimistically hope to be complete inside two hours.
Click to expand...

Just now, I'm feeling less optimistic as I've looked at the scope of work to be done and it's not small. This could run to four hours, depending...
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
Okay, Haven has talked some sense into me and we're going to start today's work on a development instance of the same board. The plan is still, uhm, fluid. Yep, fluid. We'll keep you posted. Downtime is still likely today but won't be starting 14:00 sharp.
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
We're still working away on the development instance and we've still got a fair way to go.

At this time, I still anticipate completing the vB upgrade for this live instance later today but I can't give any exact timing. Maybe after 19:00 UK time? Very hard to say, really.

It is also looking likely that for a few days or maybe the next week or so we'll be running on a basic (but as fully functional as we can make it) template while we get the original templates updated and/or replace the original templates with ones that work better / look cooler.

More as we know it.
 
Iron_fist

Iron_fist

Super Moderator
Staff member
i have plenty of procrastination time that could be much better used so if you want a hand with templates etc feel free to give me a shout
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
Hang on to that thought, Iron; it could be very interesting to take you up on that.

SIT REP:

We've completed the upgrade on the development/test instance of this board, which has involved all manner of "I'll just quickly..." and then 40 minutes later still not having something working. We have a path to upgrade that gives us all our critical functionality and probably 60/70% of our important functionality.

We're taking a break. I've been doing this since 11:00 this morning, D since 14:00... ;)

But at approximately 20:00 this evening, this board will be going down for maintenance and "the real thing".

After the board comes back up it will be running a vBulletin basic template with the critical functionality embedded. All other templates will be disabled for normal use. Admins will still be able to access them but, if you're an Admin, DO NOT USE THEM. They'll be broken in a variety of ways and will not be safe for use.

I'll PM those likely to be affected.

We'll be fixing / updating the templates through the next week or so and will make further announcements as they become available. If we're lucky, we should be able to make a wider variety of templates available for little to no administration overhead.

Some functionality may not return as it isn't compatible with the latest vBulletin version. Some may come later when it is made compatible. We'll deal with that when we get there.

'til 20:00, time for a break!
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
The board upgrade is complete but there are still a number of items outstanding.

Still to do:

  • Update previous templates and/or discard and replace with new good templates.
  • Fix Play Finder. It's currently displaying people but the underlying profile functionality is broken. We know. We'll fix it.
  • Include new cool functionality.
  • Check out vBulletin 3.7.0 social networking / user profile / user groups / etc ...

Please report anything awry in Hey Admins (and anything cool too :) ).

Thank you for you patience!

[edit]Oh... uh...[/edit]

Of course, there was a bit more configuration to do than we'd seen in the development instance. There's actually a shit load of configuration we've just left as default. Expect more cool stuff to be turned on when we've figured out what it does and how to make it work.

Total downtime: around 2 hours 20 minutes (plus the preceding 10 hours of preparation :p )
 
Ashya

Ashya

Active Member
*bows referently and crawls up to the server rack leaving offerings of Twinkies, cans of Jolt and a few banananananas for the code monkeys*
 
Traxata

Traxata

Junior Administrator
Obviously theres alot missing :p, but I'd love to see the navigation bar at the top, at the bottom of every page again.. it makes life so much easier to navigate around THN :D ( I presume thats a part of the modified blue skin that you've yet to update )

But other than that... things are looking a little shiny ...
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
To clear up the most abundant question/comment that turns up in the shoutbox:

THNer: OMFG, it's blue!

Ronin Storm:

  • Yes, it's blue.
  • No, it won't being staying blue perpetually, though a blue style will probably remain available.
  • The upgrade on Sunday took FAR FAR FAR longer than we'd expected (20 hours between 2 of us).
  • The old styles haven't yet been upgraded as we haven't had time.
  • They will be as soon as we can.
  • Amber is expected to return in some form.
  • Other styles are likely to make an appearance too, in various flavours.
 
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