[Forum] Scheduled Forum update, upgrade, maintenance planned for 2023-01-12.

[donald]

Please take into consideration that the forums will be down for maintenance Thursday of this week.


We plan to accomplish:
Database cleanup.
Software update.
Full O/S update.
Checks on files of super super secret nature.
Detailed Log reviews

We may:
Do a small set purge of aged inactive users and old unanswered threads.
Remove under used and unused features.

Timing:
These tasks should only take a few hours.
The rain date for this will be 2023-01-14.

---


This thread will also be used to provide updates after the process has finished, or to give updates if anything goes awry. We ask that everyone please keep all discussion here.






*We will do this entire thing running as root over SSH, with no backups made prior, nor will we use screen in case of a disconnection.













*just checking to see if you are reading this.

[cds60601]

*We will do this entire thing running as root over SSH, with no backups made prior, nor will we use screen in case of a disconnection.
*just checking to see if you are reading this.

LOL.
Donald, Donald, Donald.

[donald]

Forum:
38 users were pruned who had 0 post counts with no activity with a last active date of 2010. We likely wont prune again or would need to do it monthly as the search is taxing.

Removed 179 old threads from the Forum information sub-forum, the threads last views were 2007.

Upgraded the forum software to the newest release.

Your phpBB installation is up to date. There are no updates available at this time. - Re-Check version

Removed some old forum extensions that were no longer in use.

Removed the text direction BBCode.

Upgraded all of the current extensions in use.

Pruned the database of old tables, dropping over 1GB of erroneous data.


Server:
Upgraded the forums software to the newest release:
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
Release: 11
Codename: bullseye

1 package can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see it.

It is guile-x :/

0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

Notes: It went well and much easier than anticipated.

Notes2: screen[detached from 2885448.pts-1.]

[Aki]

Hello,
Thanks for the effort.
Will a further update scheduled to restore the Debian logo (swirl) in the forum's page header ?

[ticojohn]

I am HURT! At the bottom of the forum home page there is an area that shows the flags of the users that have selected a flag for their profile. I selected a flag for my profile but I don't see it in that area although I think it was shown previously. I may well be the only user that selected a flag from Costa Rica (I really live there) but it would be nice to see it recognized. I know it's a minor thing but maybe @donald can take a look at why it is not showing.

[donald]

Hello,
Thanks for the effort.
Will a further update scheduled to restore the Debian logo (swirl) in the forum's page header ?

I re-up loaded it and cleared my cache and it shows. Could you check again?

I have to give credit to @Aki who always catches the incorrect graphics on the forum. This is their multip-ith time pointing out the headers, logos, or favicon. Thank you!

I am HURT! At the bottom of the forum home page there is an area that shows the flags of the users that have selected a flag for their profile. I selected a flag for my profile but I don't see it in that area although I think it was shown previously. I may well be the only user that selected a flag from Costa Rica (I really live there) but it would be nice to see it recognized. I know it's a minor thing but maybe @donald can take a look at why it is not showing.

Whoa, I got nervous there thinking that we had cleared the flags after the update. I still see it. There are 2 users with the flag, if you click the flag icon, it will show all of the other users with that flag designation.

Costa_Rica.png (21.95 KiB) Viewed 7542 times

[Aki]

Hello,

[..] Will a further update scheduled to restore the Debian logo (swirl) in the forum's page header ?

[..] I re-up loaded it and cleared my cache and it shows. Could you check again?

Thanks again. I cleared the browser cache. The Debian swirl now appears in the header when I'm not logged, while the header is *without* swirl when I'm logged (see image attached).

[donald]

Hello,

[..] Will a further update scheduled to restore the Debian logo (swirl) in the forum's page header ?

[..] I re-up loaded it and cleared my cache and it shows. Could you check again?

Thanks again. I cleared the browser cache. The Debian swirl now appears in the header when I'm not logged, while the header is *without* swirl when I'm logged (see image attached).

Got it.

Part of the update process is moving back to the default theme, the updated theme as a default doesn't have our logo, etc ... I have to remember that for the next update. Thank you for pointing it out.

I'll check the other themes through the day.

[Aki]

Thanks again.

[ticojohn]

Whoa, I got nervous there thinking that we had cleared the flags after the update. I still see it. There are 2 users with the flag, if you click the flag icon, it will show all of the other users with that flag designation.

Costa_Rica.png

Ahhhh. I was expecting to see the CR flag on the home screen. But it makes sense that you can't show all the flags on the home screen. My bad. Thanks for the feedback @donald. And good job with the forum. Looks and works great.

[nikobit]

Anyway thank you very much for the job you've done so far! Great deal making it! No kidding!

[fabien]

Thanks for the work. Just a note: since at the bottom of the site it says “All times are UTC”, I was expecting the downtime to be 7:00 PM CET, not 6:00 PM UTC-0500

[donald]

Thanks for the work. Just a note: since at the bottom of the site it says “All times are UTC”, I was expecting the downtime to be 7:00 PM CET, not 6:00 PM UTC-0500

Good catch! I tend to go with a the -4 UTC as a habit and convert in my head.

I'm making a short list of things for the next time we do work:

Double check the UTC times for the announcement using CTE as well.
Restore the headers for the default theme.
Restore the favico file.

Thank you!

[kent_dorfman766]

I too noticed the discrpency between advertised downtime and implemented downtime but didn't want to fuss. UTC is five hours ahead of EST, or four hours ahead of EDT.

Time standards occupied way too much of my effort at my last FTE job: they chose a time reference that no-one could (or would) correctly define: J2K, which is used in spacecraft since it takes into account time deviations based on the perturbations of the planetary orbits and revolutions...then they erroneously decided to set all the spacecraft clocks using this standard instead of doing the sane thing and using a mission elapsed timer starting at zero and correcting on the ground. Total amateurs!

[donald]

I too noticed the discrpency between advertised downtime and implemented downtime but didn't want to fuss. UTC is five hours ahead of EST, or four hours ahead of EDT.

To be upfront and honest, as I mentioned to @fabien I do the time conversion in my head. fabien mentioned the forum time which was the missing key detail. For me it shows as:

Board index All times are UTC-04:00

Which is what I go off of and do my math from, but that we all have learned is my version of the time is not the overall presented time. The server and official board time are different from what the forums present to each user, so the time I am using is not really the time that should be stated. A small error that would continue be missed without feedback like this thread.