24 replies to this topic

[Albert]

As some of you may have noticed, I upgraded the forum software yesterday (Sunday, April 29th).  Took the better part of a day, including the preparations made before I even took the forum down (started at noon, ended about midnight!), but it's generally a good idea to be running the latest version of the forum software.  Most of the changes are under the hood and are either performance related or SEO related.  The forum skin isn't quite back to where it was before, but I'll spend some time tweaking it over the next few days, as well as fixing any issues people point out (such as not being able to switch from the Mobile Skin back to the regular skins, which I fixed a few minutes ago).

My primary impetus in upgrading the forum was to eliminate the "Server Too Busy" messages everyone was seeing.  Looks like this was related to a bug in the Reputation System.  There's one table in particular that has grown as large as the posts table (over 1.5GB!), which is a bit ridiculous for tracking something as small (relative to posts) as reputation points.  I've disabled the reputation system until I hear back from Invision on how to fix the issue.  If you do continue to see this "Server Too Busy" message, please let me know and I'll investigate.  I'll be keeping an eye on the server load and slow queries as well.

One big change with this new version is the ability to archive topics "in place".  This means I can specify that (for instance) topics whose last activity was three years or older are to be "archived".  These threads will then be moved from the primary "posts" table into a new table, greatly reducing the size of the "posts" table.  The only difference from a user standpoint will be that threads which have been archived cannot be replied to.  If I archive all threads three years or older (again, date of last activity, not when the thread was created), this will result in a 70% reduction in the size of the posts table.  The net gain from this is a large improvement in speed when visiting active topics, posting new messages, and reading archived topics (you won't know a topic is archived except the reply button is not available).  

I can easily "unarchive" any threads and make them active again, so this isn't a one way street.  If you do spot an archived thread you want to respond to, and have good reason to, please let me know and I'll re-open the thread.

And finally, I'm working on solving the problem where the forum is non-responsive every day at 4am (CST). Hope to resolve this soon!

Thanks for your patience,

..Al

[RedRaider]

Thanks for the heads up, but I am still unable to switch to the "deflections" skin on my iPhone 4S.  It automatically kicks me to that "mobile skin".

[sloopy]

Al, your doing a good job!

My sub money well spent :')

sloopy.

[Albert]

RedRaider, on Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:38 AM, said:

Thanks for the heads up, but I am still unable to switch to the "deflections" skin on my iPhone 4S.  It automatically kicks me to that "mobile skin".

I'm seeing the same behavior.  Let me see if there's a way around it.

Thanks,

..Al

[zylon]

looks good so far. The only problem I'm having with the upgrade is that locking/unlocking and pin/unpin of threads isn't working yet.

[Albert]

zylon, on Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:49 AM, said:

looks good so far. The only problem I'm having with the upgrade is that locking/unlocking and pin/unpin of threads isn't working yet.

I'll investigate, thanks for the report.

..Al

[PFL]

I don't know if it's a deliberate change but people's registration dates no longer show up beside their avatar.

Also, when I'm online reading through threads I've posted in my status says I'm offline.  

Good work fixing the 'Server too busy' thing though!

[Random Terrain]

Between 7:54 a.m. and 7:58 a.m. Eastern time, I got this more than once:

Quote

Oops! Something went wrong!


[#2001]
Sorry, the server is too busy to handle your request, please try again in a moment

Need Help?

• Our help documentation
  
• Contact the community administrator

[Albert]

Random Terrain, on Tue May 1, 2012 5:59 AM, said:

Between 7:54 a.m. and 7:58 a.m. Eastern time, I got this more than once:

I just saw that myself.  It's settled back down, but I'm watching.  

..Al

[Nathan Strum]

Were the blogs updated?

[Albert]

Nathan Strum, on Tue May 1, 2012 7:21 PM, said:

Were the blogs updated?

Yes.  I haven't looked at them for problems yet.

..Al

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I see Nathan is still hoping for the best

[Nathan Strum]

No, I'm just hoping for adequate.

[bomberpunk]

let me know when i can go back to the charcoal (i think that's what it was called) skin color scheme. all this white is burning my retinas.

p.s. - i'm glad you didn't run into any problems during the upgrade and lose important data. great job! and thanks!

EDIT: nevermind, i found it on accident. i was looking at the right page but in the wrong place (you have to scroll all the way down and click Select Theme)

Edited by bomberpunk, Wed May 2, 2012 11:51 AM.

[Lucky Man]

I thought this upgrade would finally fix the problem, but the Tracker link is still messed up on some screens:

 Presentation1.ppt   159K   87 downloads

Sorry about the attached screenshot. I can't seem to figure out how to paste a screenshot here.  

Edited by Lucky Man, Wed May 2, 2012 3:51 PM.

[Omegamatrix]

Just wanted to say since the forum upgrade I can now view the last post when I am on my Blackberry. Great job!!

[shadow460]

I stopped by to look up some game strategy. The forums look great!

[Nathan Strum]

Blog tags appear to work again. It would be nice if the list was sorted properly, rather than all jumbly.

Not:


Game Sprites
Photoshop Tutorials
Stupid Game Ideas!
Video Game Reviews
Animation
Stella at 20-something
Label Artwork Movies Cars
Video Game Ramblings Music
To-Do Lists Comic Strips

But:

Animation
Cars
Comic Strips
Game Sprites
Label Artwork
Movies
Music
Photoshop Tutorials
Stella at 20-something
Stupid Game Ideas!
To-Do Lists
Video Game Ramblings
Video Game Reviews

[atarilovesyou]

I thought something was different, I like the changes. The only thing I'm still noticing is the 'quick reply' often hangs up, forcing me to copy it, and paste it into a 'reply to this thread' at the top of the topic. Quite annoying, but even that seems to happen a bit less frequently lately.

*there, it just happened again as I tried to make this post, lol.  Gah!

I feel it has something to do with the 'autosave' feature...it's usually after I see that message that I get the problem.  Perhaps there's a way to turn off autosave?

Thanks for the upgrades!

[Random Terrain]

atarilovesyou, on Thu May 3, 2012 12:48 AM, said:

I feel it has something to do with the 'autosave' feature...it's usually after I see that message that I get the problem.  Perhaps there's a way to turn off autosave?

I don't even know what auto save is supposed to do. Where and how is it saving? I hit the back button by mistake one day, came right back and my text was gone. Doesn't seem to be saving anything.

[roland p]

Albert, on Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:17 AM, said:

My primary impetus in upgrading the forum was to eliminate the "Server Too Busy" messages everyone was seeing.  Looks like this was related to a bug in the Reputation System.  There's one table in particular that has grown as large as the posts table (over 1.5GB!), which is a bit ridiculous for tracking something as small (relative to posts) as reputation points.  I've disabled the reputation system until I hear back from Invision on how to fix the issue.  If you do continue to see this "Server Too Busy" message, please let me know and I'll investigate.  I'll be keeping an eye on the server load and slow queries as well.

That reputation bug has probably something to do with that guy who has 8676339 reputation points

[Nathan Strum]

Is there a reasonably painless way to convert blog tags to categories? I like the way categories return results much better than tags. Plus, the list is sorted properly.

[SpendTooMuchOnAtari]

Were user's site registration dates deleted for good?  They used to be shown under people's avatar and number of posts.  I found it informative and sometimes helpful.

[Albert]

SpendTooMuchOnAtari, on Fri May 25, 2012 2:15 AM, said:

Were user's site registration dates deleted for good?  They used to be shown under people's avatar and number of posts.  I found it informative and sometimes helpful.

The information is still stored, just not displayed under your avatar.  You can find it a member's profile page.  I'll add it back to the topic view.  

..Al

[SpiceWare]

SpendTooMuchOnAtari, on Fri May 25, 2012 2:15 AM, said:

Were user's site registration dates deleted for good?

Just point at the user's name.  A pop-up will appear, it contains that and other information.