Forum upgrade imminent - fingers crossed.

adrian

Flying Squad
Hi,

Recent issues have highlighted the dire need for upgrading the forum software to the latest version. I've been rather guilty of sticking my head in the sand and take the stance of "if it aint broke don't fix it".

Unfortunately it's got to the stage where some things are now broken so I'll have to take the plunge and apply the updates. It will also add some nice new features and allow me to progress an idea for a resource repository.

So I'll be running a few last minutes checks for the upgrade and sort out a full backup, probably tomorrow* (Wednesday). If all goes to plan and tests are successful then I'll add a banner notice to say that the forum is likely to be offline for an hour or so whilst I apply the updates. Give everyone a little time at their workbench so there be some interesting new content when we are back on line.

Whilst the forum is offline if there are any problems I will post updates on twitter - viewable via the browser so you don't need an account so view the updates.

https://twitter.com/western_thunder

If you do have a twitter account then please feel free to follow and message me with any queries.

Reagards

Adrian

*ps Wednesday was tomorrow when I started the post. I took too long so "tomorrow" is now "today" - but I'll be doing the tests and backs during daylight hours!!
 

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
Hi Adrian,

I think that it is fair to say that our collective fingers and toes are well and crossed for a successful upgrade.

best wishes

Mike
 

cbrailways

Western Thunderer
Thanks Adrian. You and the rest of the WT team put in a lot of work to keep us all happy and well informed. I sometimes wish I could help, but I'm no computer expert (but give me a complex electronic signalling system design and it would be no problem). ;)
 
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
Hi Adrian, I mentioned to Simon recently that my 'Gallery' images saw me through a difficult period at the time, and so the whole North Wales and Pennine gallery could be deleted as far as I'm concerned if it releases valuable band space.

Cheers,
LarryG
 

adrian

Flying Squad
And the Funding. ;) :thumbs:
On here we are blissfully free of adverts - and the unwelcome tinkering that the IT people do with them on the live Forum - that plague the Other, admittedly very much larger, Place.
Don't get me started on adverts and cookies! I find them annoying, intrusive and I'm convinced they slow down any site hence fully intend to keep it totally ad free. The worst is the cookie policies. Here's a set of "Partner Cookies" you can object to but then hidden away is another set of "Legitimate Interest" cookies to object to. They are conniving shysters - the list of legitimate interest cookies are frequently hidden away, the option to object and save objection is frequently a small innocuous link but the "Accept All" is a nice big bright button and then the term "legitimate interest" when it's patently nothing of the sort but it also implies that the standard cookies are not "legitimate interest".
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Hi Adrian, I mentioned to Simon recently that my 'Gallery' images saw me through a difficult period at the time, and so the whole North Wales and Pennine gallery could be deleted as far as I'm concerned if it releases valuable band space.

Cheers,
LarryG
Thanks for the offer it is appreciated. However storage space is not a problem for the forum, when it was originally setup the hosting package included 150Gb of storage space. We are currently using about 35Gb for the forum so around 25% full, hence deleting files and threads isn't necessary and something I'm usually reluctant to do.
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Thanks for the feedback. Setting up a copy to have a dry run through with the latest version and then backup took slightly longer than anticipated. However it was ultimately successful so I will apply the updates this morning (Thursday). So we'll be off line for a short period whilst I update the software.

I'll get it back up and running as soon as possible. Some of the current features and tweaks that characterise WT will be missing initially to minimise downtime but I will add them back in bit by bit. So even when back online don't be surprised if things are not quite in the usual places. However I will endeavour to reimplement them as soon as I can.

Regards

Adrian
 

NHY 581

Western Thunderer
Thanks Adrian.

Your time spent on doing this is very much appreciated. I certainly take things for granted in that I poke the WT icon on the 'quick access' section of my browser and WT miraculously appears in all it's glory.

All too often, the efforts of Boffins like yourself get overlooked but I for one am jolly grateful.

Rob.
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Apologies for the delay - last minute tests all worked fine and I've done the full site backups. It's just that the backup zip file is taking longer than expected to download. Given the current download rate it's probably going to be about 12:30 when I shall take it offline for the upgrade. Given yesterdays tests it probably be offline for about an hour.
 
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