Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Don't Panic -- software upgrades in progress

Don't Panic -- software upgrades in progress

Polverone - 29-5-2014 at 18:59

I am going to be performing software upgrades on the system that this site runs on, starting tonight and possibly continuing through the weekend. There will be at least a few hours of downtime sprinkled through the process, possibly many hours if I screw things up along the way. I'm hoping to not screw things up along the way.

For the technically inclined and curious, I am planning to 0) back up the forum database 1) switch the system kernel from 32 bit to 64 bit, 2) take advantage of a free hardware upgrade at my VPS available only for 64 bit systems, and 3) upgrade the OS distribution from Ubuntu 12.04 to 14.04. After the hardware upgrade the site should be running on a solid state drive instead of traditional spinning platters, which may make it faster during periods of heavy use.

DrAldehyde - 29-5-2014 at 19:12

Thanks for putting in the time.

arkoma - 29-5-2014 at 19:47

Best of luck wrangling those damned penguins! (Micro-WHO??) Thank You immensely for a wonderful website, by the way.

Bert - 29-5-2014 at 20:24

In your honor, I shall make an Italian break-and-report cylinder shell. Containing substantial amounts of polverone...

Thanks for all you do.

elementcollector1 - 29-5-2014 at 22:14

Not sure if this is even relevant, but I clicked on References and it took me to Legal/Societal Issues... one-time glitch?

Polverone - 1-6-2014 at 20:22

The bulk of the upgrade is complete now. I still need to check, possibly configure, email alerts again.

alexleyenda - 1-6-2014 at 21:06

ATM I am unable to use the U2Us, I guess that is caused by the updates. I tried several time, it always gives an error saying that my U2U is empty.

plante1999 - 1-6-2014 at 21:26

There is still the emails for the one which gave it in their account details...

Polverone - 1-6-2014 at 22:04

alexleyenda, I sent you a test U2U message. I also checked the database and you definitely have U2U messages saved there. What happens when you try to view your U2Us?

woelen - 2-6-2014 at 06:15

It seems that all users lost access to whimsy and references. The access lists are empty.

@Polverone: Can you have a look at it? I last checked the access lists a few hours ago, because I gave someone access. This morning they still were OK, now they are empty

The Volatile Chemist - 2-6-2014 at 06:34

Quote: Originally posted by woelen

It seems that all users lost access to whimsy and references. The access lists are empty.

@Polverone: Can you have a look at it? I last checked the access lists a few hours ago, because I gave someone access. This morning they still were OK, now they are empty

That doesn't sound good... I wasn't on either list, but still...

Zyklon-A - 2-6-2014 at 06:42

Yeah, my access was lost to both Whimsy and Referances. How hard will it be to fix this?
[EDIT] U2U works fine. Will everyone need to request access again? Or is there a saved list of everyone who had it?

[Edited on 2-6-2014 by Zyklonb]

Hexavalent - 2-6-2014 at 06:47

Same here, I got the "Sorry, you are not permitted to view this forum" as anticipated

Regarding U2Us, I have sent myself a test message and all seems to be working fine; I can access my inbox, open and write messages just fine.

[Edited on 2-6-2014 by Hexavalent]

Polverone - 2-6-2014 at 14:14

I don't know how the access lists were lost. I just dumped from the old MySQL database and restored to the new one. I was able to retrieve the acccess lists from a database backup and I have restored them to the live db. Whimsy and References should work again if you had access before.

woelen - 4-6-2014 at 01:32

The access list for whimsy is empty again

.

I can give some more information now. I added a new member and after adding this new member, the list is empty. So, apparently in the software upgrade something is broken and adding a new member to an access list makes it empty.

After this experience I did not add the new member to references, first this issue must be fixed.

elementcollector1 - 4-6-2014 at 08:29

Another glitch: Those mail icons on the left no longer work for me (tested on at least 3 computers) - they are eternally stuck at whatever alert level they were before (blue, orange, yellow circle, etc.) no matter how many times I click on them and/or how many new posts are made.

Zyklon-A - 4-6-2014 at 08:35

Another glitch: I can't post anything but a subject in the Fused Quartz furnace thread [http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=30471].
It says "Sorry you must enter a message and/or subject."
If I enter both, only the subject appears.
Tried on four different computers and a phone and iPod Touch.

[EDIT] Typo

[Edited on 4-6-2014 by Zyklonb]

The Volatile Chemist - 4-6-2014 at 11:47

Quote: Originally posted by elementcollector1

Another glitch: Those mail icons on the left no longer work for me (tested on at least 3 computers) - they are eternally stuck at whatever alert level they were before (blue, orange, yellow circle, etc.) no matter how many times I click on them and/or how many new posts are made.

Mine's been like that for a while, possibly the whole time I've been on here.

Brain&Force - 4-6-2014 at 15:29

I can confirm it's just Whimsy, access to References has not been affected.

[edit] it appears several uploaded files have been corrupted as a result of the upgrade. I can't see many photos I uploaded here.

[Edited on 4.6.2014 by Brain&Force]

arkoma - 4-6-2014 at 15:48

all the sudden Brain & Forces mood looks like this:

Eksanitï¿½oÄ‘ilï¿½sratoÇµ!

(edit) didn't copy/paste correctly
(edit) didn't edit right either

[Edited on 6-4-2014 by arkoma]

[Edited on 6-4-2014 by arkoma]

Polverone - 4-6-2014 at 16:19

I found the problem with updating user access lists. With the PHP and MySQL upgrades, non-ASCII characters were no longer passed properly between the database and the web code. A single non-ASCII character would cause the entire string to be blanked, and some users have such names. User names with such characters also displayed improperly in e.g. the members list. I had to change MySQL settings and restore the user list from backups again. I can confirm that adding another user no longer causes the list to be blanked.

Test: Schrödinger

Polverone - 4-6-2014 at 16:33

The momentarily-screwy appearance of text was probably from while I was still switching encodings and settings over. There is definitely a problem with at least some attachments. Checking if fresh attachments work...

Polverone - 4-6-2014 at 16:42

And another test:

Polverone - 4-6-2014 at 17:24

Ok, attachment handling now fixed, one more upload test to be sure...

Polverone - 4-6-2014 at 17:35

Testing larger file size attachments. It should now be possible to upload files of up to 10 megabytes.

Attachment: Talk_05_Neese.pdf (3.9MB)
This file has been downloaded 2528 times

sparkgap - 4-6-2014 at 17:55

Quote:

It should now be possible to upload files of up to 10 megabytes.

Quite generous with the file size, thank you! I take it that this means the scipics FTP is now completely deprecated?

sparky (~_~)

arkoma - 4-6-2014 at 18:58

LOL attachment of cat pics

Polverone - 4-6-2014 at 19:41

Quote: Originally posted by sparkgap

Quote:

It should now be possible to upload files of up to 10 megabytes.

Quite generous with the file size, thank you! I take it that this means the scipics FTP is now completely deprecated?

sparky (~_~)

Yes, the only reason I had the FTP access in the first place was to overcome attachment size limits. I was never able to increase them before. Then I discovered that allowing FTP access was a security problem waiting to happen, and I've finally figured out how to raise the attachment limits, so... just attach away. The limits could be raised a little more even, but I don't really want people uploading huge things like videos.

The Volatile Chemist - 5-6-2014 at 14:12

Well thanks! I'll still compress my digital camera pics though

Darn, they're big, 2 Mb for the smallest!

Brain&Force - 6-6-2014 at 16:37

Just wondering, why is the attachment resolution limit 800x3000? It seems unusual because the attachments only display as thumbnails.

Polverone - 6-6-2014 at 22:52

Resolution limits raised.

Brain&Force - 6-6-2014 at 23:04

Thanks Polverone!

numos - 6-6-2014 at 23:28

Quote: Originally posted by Polverone

Resolution limits raised.

Ah! Thanks! No longer will I have to shrink my images ^^

kmno4 - 7-6-2014 at 06:42

Quote: Originally posted by Brain&Force

Just wondering, why is the attachment resolution limit 800x3000? It seems unusual because the attachments only display as thumbnails.

It depends on picture format and forum settings (ask admind why).
For example .bmp pictures are displayed correctly, not as thumbnails.
See this http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=27849

Texium - 10-6-2014 at 13:59

Not sure what the deal is with this, but lately read topics and forums are not showing up for me as read, they still say they're unread.